Updated Wednesday
The Rochester diocesan synod has passed a vote of No Confidence in the Archbishops’ Council with reference to safeguarding.
“That this Synod resolves to pass a vote of no confidence in the Archbishops’ Council’s oversight of safeguarding and urges for the necessary reforms to restore trust, safeguard the vulnerable, and uphold the Church’s moral and legal responsibilities.”
The voting was:
In favour: 51
Against: 5
Abstentions: 9
The diocesan bishop supported the motion.
For more details, including a link to the full text of the proposer’s speech, see here: Diocesan Synod backs vote of no confidence
This action has attracted some media attention:
Well done Rochester
Interesting that the Diocesan backed it. Wasn’t he one of the lead safeguarding Bishops for a while? I don’t recall much about his tenure in that role, and would be interested to hear opinions on his effectiveness.
The current Diocesan Bishop of Rochester, Jonathan Gibbs was indeed identified as the ‘Lead Bishop for Safeguarding’, serving three years in that role, while he was the Suffragan Bishop of Huddersfield. He followed the then Diocesan Bishop of Bath & Wells, Peter Hancock who fulfilled that role for four years, and Paul Butler, the Bishop of Durham, who served for six years. Joanne Grenfell, the Area Bishop of Stepney is the current holder of the Safeguarding ‘portfolio’, about halfway through her ‘three-year term’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spokesperson_bishops_in_the_Church_of_England It appears to me to represent a ‘downgrading over time’ of the role in the ‘pecking… Read more »
Yes, Gibbs was ineffective as safeguarding lead, and it’s rather surprising that he’s taken such a firm stand now. However, suffragans are in a vulnerable position when it comes to sticking their necks out and challenging the system. As a diocesan he has more scope, though we hear that considerable pressure to conform is also exerted on diocesans (for an instance, see the Archbishops’ letter to +Helen-Ann, urging her to relax her stand on safeguarding). Soon after he moved to York, ++Cottrell asked if I had any suggestions re safeguarding. I had 5, one of which was that the safeguarding… Read more »
Maybe he was constrained and frustrated in his intentions of that role by the AC, as others seem to have been. Why presume otherwise? The cat needs skinning.
I’m all for votes of no confidence like this, but I’m also against Bishops who conveniently forget their complicity in the problem. I genuinely don’t know if that includes +Rochester or not, hence the question.
I remember the difficulty Jasvinder Sanghera and Steve Reeves had getting to address to General Synod when the Archbishop of York was acting as the sole President (the Archbishop of Canterbury having been called away for personal reasons). The public evidence that Ebor has been constrained by Cantuar is lacking.
There should be more of this at all levels in the Church of England. My PCC (of which I am not a member) has passed unanimously the following resolution: This PCC: 1. notes with dismay the Makin Report and all it implies for the victims and survivors of the wickedness of John Smyth, both in the UK and Southern Africa; 2. believes all those, lay and ordained, who are referred to in the Report and who either covered up the criminal acts at the time or failed to act properly on formal disclosures made later, should be fully held to account; 3. contrasts… Read more »
That’s great! I hope more parishes follow.
Hurrah for the action of one parish; if only others would follow!
It must assume that insufficient publicity is given to issues the various levels of bureaucracy discuss and over which they legislate.
Yes – more parishes should do something similar.
incidentally – it is bad practice for a Reader not to be ex officio on their PCC!
I could serve ex-officio but decided 42 years (on only three different PCCs) was quite enough! They do copy me in!
I don’t blame you. One of the reasons the Church struggles to get volunteers is the habit of pushing for “just one more thing”.
That perhaps depends on how many Readers (LLMs) a parish has.
Yes, last week my PCC (unprompted by me as the vicar, and slightly to my surprise!) drafted and voted to pass a similar resolution and send it off to various authorities. It is hard to overstate the frustration and dismay at the local level, where hard-pressed lay volunteers are asked to complete more and more safeguarding paperwork and training, whilst significant failings at the top appear to go unaddressed.
Good for them. More PCCs should do similar and make sure the results of their votes are communicated to their area deans, archdeacons and bishops.
I fully agree that lay volunteers in parishes have been asked to do more and more to try and make up for the failings of those in paid positions in our church. This is on top of the already heavy burden many volunteers at parish level have to deal with. Certainly in my parish the diocese and it’s demands are a source and stress, paperwork and negativity and never a source of support.
I agree. This morning I covered a midweek Eucharist for a colleague at a church where, shall we say, the parishioners are not exactly known for their activism. The fury in the room about the House of Lords carry on and the situation more widely was astonishing…and without any prompting or stirring up by me.