The final day in this three week period of hearings has concluded and the transcript is available here.
Many documents have at last been uploaded to the IICSA website, and I will publish links to some of the more important ones in a separate article soon.
Before today’s hearing there were some comments about the hearings made yesterday, including these:
Guardian editorial: The Guardian view of abuse in the church: a truly dreadful story
Michael Sadgrove Child Sexual Abuse – what does the church do about shame?
Archbishop Cranmer Welby condemns the church’s deferential culture of clericalism and tribalism
Law & Religion UK IICSA: Archbishop Welby’s evidence session
And earlier, another article which I failed to link to previously: IICSA: Some legal views
Reports on today’s session:
Church Times Church of England would be shut down if it were a school, survivors’ lawyer tells final IICSA hearing
Christian Today Church of England made ‘conscious effort to treat survivors badly’, inquiry hears
Guardian Child abuse inquiry: ‘collusion and cover-up’ rife among C of E clergy
The Tablet Church of England ‘inappropriate’ organisation to have charge of children, inquiry hears
Thanks to Michael Sadgrove for his excellent piece. It’s a relief to see that one or two of our leaders, at least, have really ‘got it’.
Now, as he says, we need to see some real action, and fast.
The “some legal issues” discussion raises the issue of whether, if child sexual abuse is to be exempted from the seal of the confessional, that should not apply to all child abuse. And if all child abuse, presumably abuse of vulnerable adults as well. We also had Welby saying the child abusers should never be given a second chance (even if repentant and forgiven), and I wondered on the relevant thread whether that too was confined to child sexual abuse or applied to all abuse. It seems to my limited understanding that we may be setting some quite fundamental principles… Read more »
Completely on message Dean Emeritus of Durham. But I am not sure Michael Sadgrove is right to say that ++Cantuar should have actually offered an independent safeguarding commission. We all know it is coming, but I think IICSA needs to do its work and for the Church then to respond accordingly.
Stephen Lynas, who blogs as bathwellschap has written two articles on the hearings:
https://bathwellschap.wordpress.com/2018/03/12/iicsas-first-anglican-week/
https://bathwellschap.wordpress.com/2018/03/23/iicsa-concludes-for-now/
I have just been writing something about redress, because some of the things here bug me, and I once knew a lot about damages for personal injury. I don’t have a blog of my own, but would like to share just one thought here, which might unlock and articulate a tangible sign of the “culture change” everyone is mentioning. It is based on the idea of system failure as known to generations of engineers. Our doctrine of sin tells us that people and systems will fail. Engineers know that they can substantially control the likely modes of failure in the… Read more »
It seems to me that the Church of England hierarchy cannot be a trusted part of the establishment – and that the whole of the establishment itself can now be seen only as self-serving and corrupt.
Voluntary Disestablishment would be a worthy act of penance, alongside treating abuse survivors with respect, listening to them, seeing that justice is done.An independent safeguarding body would ensure the latter.