Robert Thompson Guarding the Flock Beyond Compliance: Why the Church’s Next Safeguarding Challenge Is Culture
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church False Safeguarding Accusations and how they Damage the Church
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Ending Abusive Theologies – Beginning Again with Love
Phil Groves ViaMedia.News GAFCON and CEEC
Thank you Philip for this helpful analysis of the emerging and alarming whodunnett on the tragic fissiparous demise of the Anglican Communion. It would appear that in recent years CEEC have expended a huge amount of time, effort and cash sowing the winds of discord, disunity and discrimination. Now they are reaping the whirlwind. Be careful everyone that you aren’t inadvertently caught in its path!
All the differences highlighted in GAFCON exist within the C of E so what’s the point of this article other than to pretend the C of E is something it is not. There is a word for that and it’s not fissiparous.
Thank you for stating the obvious. The looking outside and seeing problems is to avoid the obvious. The CofE is a mess (1) and dying (2). Honestly, in what way might one think of the CofE in even a decade, in terms of health and growth and non-decline?
One can only applaud the African churches of GSFA (who have the vast majority of Anglican members) that remain in impaired union for sticking with what remains of a dysfunctional ACC. They have no representation on the standing committee. This is the tail wagging the dog, One baptism remains the basis of our faith, a personal commitment to Christ, not the church. Unity of the church is by the grace of God alone, this is what Jesus prayed for. It is not based on trust or hope on our part. A fundamental misreading of scripture.
In other news, the Vatican has excommunicated all members of the SSPX https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/02/vatican-excommunicates-all-members-of-ultra-conservative-rebels-sspx
Bizarrely in my tiny East Susssex village we have an SSPX church, serviced by an SSPX priest from Herne Bay which is a long way from here. Ironically they worship in the former Methodist Chapel. To be fair SSPX in the UK is a very different animal from France (where it is deeply embroiled in far right politics, and from the US where SSPX sponsored schools will walk out of sports events if any women or girls are involved. An unusual world!
Wow! Do you know how many they number. Are they growing? How and whom do they attract? Sound potentially telling that this form of religiosity has, literally, replaced Methodism in your context, but perhaps that’s over egging things, as an observation.
A former bishop born in Margate was a member of SSPX. He was also a holocaust denier among his other outrageous views. I don’t think Anglicans or Methodists have much to worry about from this reactionary sect.
I said a requiem for Bishop Williamson this year on his anniversary. I met him a couple of times long ago and he was a delightful man.
Williamson said the Covid pandemic was caused by Jews. He was fined for spreading racial hatred. You have a peculiar definition of “delightful”.
They are tiny and marginal (though they have done a good job on the Methodist Chapel! I know the odd RC in the village who has been to Mass there and come back completely baffled. As I suggested above, SSPX in the UK doesn’t have the same political agenda as eg in France (where right wing organisations distribute their publications on the steps of St Nicolas du Chadonnet (the church they occupy in the middle of Paris) before Mass on Sundays. A bit of a contrast to the Community of Jerusalem down the road at St Gervaise. French Catholicism is… Read more »
SSPX in USA rejection of women in sport is new one to me. I have to wonder what else is forbidden to women in their world view – or is it easier to state what they are allowed to do?
When I was involved with them they still had no buildings of their own and used to have mass in hired hotel function rooms. I remember when they acquired their first church in London, St Padarn’s, a former Welsh speaking Anglican church, and going to its consecration by Archbishop Lefebvre. They have subsequently acquired a lot more churches and many of them are former Non-Conformist chapels. The one in Manchester is ex Salvation Army I think. One in Gateshead is formerly Church of England, but there have been stories of the C of E being reluctant to sell redundant buildings… Read more »
And economically bizarre. We spend a ridiculous amount of resource maintaining buildings which are rarely or never worshipped in. Sell them off, I say, and use the money raised and saved to pay for more vicars/youth workers/insert own preference here.
Why do groups like this have such a thing for lacey vestments? There are two pictures in the article and the clerical vestments in both are quite lacey. The vestments in the second picture are so lacey, I would think it would be very hard to put them on and take them off without ripping them apart.
I have the impression that Vatican 2 introduced a standard square-neck and long sleeves ‘surplice’ which largely replaced the former ubiquitous cotta. I remember them with much elaborate lace in a C of E AC church as well as obvious places like Westminster Cathedral and the London Oratory. ‘Surplice’ may not be the right term, but it is recognisably standard worldwide in the RC church. Having said this, I’m not sure about choir dress for RC bishops.
I wear lacey albs and yes, you have to take care putting them on, and in kneeling and genuflecting while wearing them, but isn’t that the point? If all you do is fling a cassock alb over your head, are you going to take much care with the rest of the mass?
Shades of Dame Rose Macaulay’s wonderful Towers of Trebizond with its immortal opening lines and the subsequent adventures of Aunt Dot and “that ancient bigot, Fr Hugh Chantry-Pigg”.
I remember visiting Watts and Co to purchase my LLM vestments. They did a good job at a remarkably reasonable price. But my husband who accompanied me said he now knows how Harry Potter felt on first walking into Olivander’s wand shop.
Somebody did once write a vesting prayer for use when putting on a cassock alb. I can’t quite remember how it went, but it was something along the lines of “Lord, grant that I may put on the potato sack of convenience with due carelessness…”.
I don’t need to worry about the state or position of my lace while kneeling, which I find preserves more, rather than less of my attention for God. But each to their own.
It is getting up from kneeling after the prayer of humble access where the problems can occur.
I pray for your safe and graceful return to uprightness.
I did not care for the gleeful tone of this article. The SSPX were excommunicated before when Lefebvre consecrated four bishops. It is simply an automatic thing. Latae Sententiae. They coped before and they will cope again, even though, apparently, it is ‘not very nice’ to be excommunicated. All of us random C of E vicars who post here are excommunicated. Do we lose sleep over it?
Phil, Thanks again for your dispatches from the front line of the Anglican Communion. Could I ask for your thoughts about overall trends over the last couple of decades, rather than a snapshot of what is happening today. It seems to me that, compared to 20 years ago, these GAFCON/GAC entities do not have the power they once had, and are struggling with internal contradictions. Are they loosing ground or relevance, or is that just my wishful thinking It’s also my perception that we in the UK underestimate the strength of the more liberal pro-women, pro-LGBTQ movements within the African… Read more »
And while you are at it, can you turn your competent eye on the CofE and evaluate its health, future, and raison d’etre?
A serious question is intended.
Thank you Anglican Priest. I think that is again a PhD. I can look at my parishes – I have two paishes with three churches. Sunday attendance figures are slightly growing on the weekly count. But we know that we have fewer people who come every week. Attendance is now once or twice a month apart from a core of 10 or so. That means we have more different people attending over a month, but they come only once or twice a month. These are village churches with populations of 600 and 1,000. We find one Sunday we have 50… Read more »
I suppose in most places now ( some rural and a few other places not withstanding) we have become a gathered church and as you say some clergy welcome this. It is probably the biggest change in my lifetime ( b 1949) and this, with the traditions moving apart, fragmenting and having less in common, the huge variations in worship and the money problems have made the C of E almost unrecognisable from the church of my choir boy days. I suppose trying to be a National church on the Folk Church model can only really work if like the… Read more »
What kind of CofE would you imagine given the demographics: aging and small parish churches, no remotely comparable replacement? In a decade, will there be 350,000 ASA? How can that be a “Church of England”?
Commitment to church is not deep. That’s a very striking observation which hadn’t occurred to me. I recall before 2020 I used to worship at an 8 o’clock in a market town centre church. Fourteen worshippers but never at the same time. I was one of three who attended every week and the only non pensioner. It’s a sinecure inasmuch as outside Sunday worship nothing happens. Locked church and no contact with other worshippers. No mission, no baptisms, weddings or funerals. A huge and growing deficit and the church needs millions of pounds to fix serious problems. I haven’t been… Read more »
Commitment to church is falling and has been falling since the 1960’s, but faith in Jesus is rising. Priest’s have had a long time to respond to this, but now the day of reckoning is close, everyone and everything is to blame!
Wow – that is a PhD not a blog post! It is not for a reply on a blog post. I can’t do that now as I am going to concentrate on the full inclusion of Neurodivergent people for my next couple of posts. We have so much hope for the upcoming synod motion. However briefly – I always say its complex. Fundamentally, international churches only flourish in partnership. My PhD offered a Biblical model of partnership which you can fid on page 5 of this lecture – https://ecclawsoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Croft-paper-Res-Con-17.pdf – I condensed a PhD inot one side of A4! the… Read more »
Phil,
That is a more than good enough answer, and one that made me smile
Thank you.
I’m a little surprised no one has commented on Stephen Parsons’ article, given how vulnerable clergy are to false accusations of all kinds. A safeguarding complaint will put clergy out of action for months, possibly years, and besmirch their reputation. There doesn’t even need to be a complainant, just a rumour will do it – as Fr. Alan Griffin tragically found. And the C of E cannot be trusted to investigate, or to pursue justice for either party. Most allegations are genuine, but now that they are being taken more seriously anyone with a grievance – real or imagined –… Read more »
Yes indeed Janet, but not only clergy, lay people too are a prey to false accusations in the C/E.
Yes, I should have mentioned that. A false accusation is a powerful weapon to use against anyone. And the reasons behind them can include malice, revenge, confusion, genuine mistake, and psychiatric illness.
We need to remember that most allegations are genuine, and it’s good they ar enow being taken more seriously, but false allegations also happen and are devastating.
The common defense that “5% of allegations are false” is a profound bureaucratic distortion. In criminology, a “false” claim requires definitive proof of a deliberate, malicious fabrication. The Church routinely misuses this statistic by folding “unsubstantiated” or “disputed” cases into it. Claims are dismissed simply because archives are missing, or because trauma has fragmented a survivor’s chronological memory. A narrative fractured by severe trauma is the primary psychological signature of genuine abuse, not a lie. Using rigid legalistic metrics to classify these vulnerable, complex testimonies as “false” is an act of institutional self-preservation, not a pursuit of truth. The Independent… Read more »
Thanks, Richie. The statistic does not come just from churches, but also from secular abuse lawyers. And the C of E has the disgraceful record of both dismissing genuine allegations, and of assuming the truth of doubtful ones without proper investigation – presumably to earn safeguarding brownie points. I, other survivors, and friends of the accused have all been told by safeguarding staff that ‘the Church does not investigate’. In some cases they have even refused to look at readily available records to see if the alleged victim and the accused could have been in the same place at the… Read more »