In Christian Today Paul Richardson writes Senior clergy don’t need MBAs to deal with abuse
and Linda Woodhead responds Yes, theologies of forgiveness and confession have played a role in Church abuse and cover up
David Walker ViaMedia.News Challenging APCMs?
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Too much sin and guilt, not enough forgiveness?
John Thomson Church Times Rural churches are open and here to stay
“Mission matters in the countryside — and the Church’s efforts can have a greater impact there than in the city”
The Hobson The Spectator Holy snowflakes: why young believers need to accept faith is controversial
“Are millennial churchgoers trying to make the church a safe space?”
Jonathan Draper Afterthoughts Doing theology in La La Land
39 CommentsThe Church Times reports: House of Laity panel upholds Synod member’s seat on Crown Nominations Commission
A REQUEST to invalidate the election of a member of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC) has been rejected by an appeal panel, which has concluded that members are not required to declare conflicts of interest…
The full text of the decision of the panel can be found here.
At the time of writing, the final link in the Church Times report is broken, but it ought to be: Synod groupings rebut claims they are taking over the CNC
The O’Donovan report and related documents are linked in this report.
29 CommentsRosie Harper ViaMedia.News Are We in Love with Sin?
Colin Coward Unadulterated Love Self-examination and self-knowledge – missing essentials from the IICSA hearings
Andrew Brown The Guardian The NHS’s new humanist chaplain is a welcome sign of our shifting spirituality
“Formal religious belief may be falling off, but the need for ritual to mark major life events is still strong”
The Ozanne Foundation, whose formation was announced last December, held a formal launch event on Monday.
This press release was issued: Ozanne Foundation Unveils Strategy to Combat Prejudice.
At the event, Bishop Paul Bayes, chair of the trustees, delivered this speech.
News reports of the event:
Guardian Rejection by C of E has driven LGBT people to suicide, bishop says
Christian Today Bishop and senior clergyman join calls for Church of England to lose equalities exemptions
Telegraph The Church of England should lose its exemption to discrimination laws, Dean of St Paul’s says
40 CommentsSixty bishops have joined with other faith leaders to condemn the UK government Two-child limit on Universal Credit policy.
This has been very widely reported in the media.
C of E press release Bishops call for rethink on two-child limit
Bishop Paul Butler writes: A blessing not a burden: why every child should be valued equally
End Child Poverty report: Unhappy Birthday! The Two-Child Limit at One Year Old
End Child Poverty press release
The full text of the letter and the list of signatories is copied below the fold.
48 CommentsJeremy Morris Viamedia.News IICSA – Is Clericalism to Blame?
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church A response to Martin Warner on Safeguarding
[We linked to Martin Warner’s article yesterday.]
Wealands Bell Preaching in red ink
12 CommentsToday the Church Times has a two page spread of articles following up on the IICSA hearings.
Leader comment: Safeguarding: the next steps
…These pages contain a range of different perspectives on how to tackle sexual abuse; and yet there is a common desire to make safeguarding comprehensive and effective. This sounds like stating the obvious. There is a danger, however, pointed out most clearly by Josephine Anne Stein, that the type of safeguarding being promoted throughout the Church is modelled on a pattern designed to protect institutions from prosecution. A Christian organisation must do better than this…
Martin Warner Safeguarding: what we got wrong, and the steps we are taking to put it right
Linda Woodhead Forget culture. It’s a new theology we need
Anonymous: Sex-offender asks: are only the righteous called to repentance?
Josephine Anne Stein: The safeguarding overhaul that’s needed
…Safeguarding in the Church of England has burgeoned into a procedural, bureaucratic, and bloated industry that does not appear to be effective either in responding to abuse or in preventing further abuse. When checked earlier this year, the C of E’s safeguarding policy posted on the National Safeguarding Team’s website consisted of 364 separate pages…
13 Comments…THERE are alternative approaches to safeguarding within the healthcare sector, grounded in the development of professional ethics, the regular assessment of fitness to practise, and professional discipline.
There are also alternatives to formal safeguarding complaints procedures that combine knowledge and experience from occupational psychology, specialist social work, and restorative justice, much of which is unfamiliar within the Church.
Furthermore, there are inexpensive and empowering ways to improve knowledge and understanding of both the causes of and responses to abuse in different constituencies within the Church — a bottom-up approach in contrast to current centralised, top-down training. If everyone in the Church is responsible for safeguarding, everyone is also responsible for ownership of safeguarding…
Archdruid Eileen The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley Simon Jenkins Writes Drivel
Jules Middleton apples of gold In Defence of the Church – a response to Simon Jenkins…
David Ison ViaMedia.News The Challenge of Harmonious Difference
Two more primatial Easter messages
Primus Mark Strange
Moderator Thomas K Oommen
[These have all been taken from the list compiled by the Anglican Communion News Service]
Markus Dünzkofer pisky.scot The Eucharist is a dangerous thing
Ben Pugh Church Times Ransom, substitute, scapegoat, God: is there one doctrine of the atonement?
“No, there are only theories”
Rosie Harper ViaMedia.News Apologies, Forgiveness and IICSA
Editorial The Guardian view on Easter: it would take a miracle
The Guardian Good Friday around the world – in pictures
Simon Jenkins The Guardian Happy Easter to you. Now let’s nationalise our churches
“Church buildings should revert to places of congregation, comfort and enterprise – through liberation from the church”
More primatial Easter messages
Archbishop John Davies
Archbishop Stanley Ntagali
Archbishop Fred Hiltz
Archbishop James Wong
Archbishop Paul Kwong
Archbishop Moon Hing
The Bishop of Salisbury, Nicholas Holtam, preached at the diocesan Maundy Thursday Chrism Mass.
The press release about this: A Maundy Message in the World’s Eye
The full text of his sermon is available here.
Another quote from the sermon:
…As a parish priest I always used to find that people with the most intractable problems would appear after the Sunday evening service when nowhere was open and there was no-one to whom I could refer them. For bishops the equivalent is receiving a letter late on Friday afternoon from the Archbishops about the Church of England and the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) which they wanted read out or distributed at the start of Holy Week.
Please will you pray this Holy Week especially for all those involved, and for all affected by safeguarding issues.
Thank you for responding so promptly.
Janet Fife wrote a sharp but insightful Survivor’s reply to the Archbishops which is online.
I thought you might want to know,
she wrote,
how I, as a survivor, feel about your letter. And I know you’ll pay careful attention, because you’ve said you want to listen to survivors.
Since Archbishop Justin has called for an end to clericalism and deference, I’m going to call you Justin and John.
If you’re going to address us all as ‘Sisters and Brothers in Christ’, don’t finish with ‘The Most Revd and Rt Hon’. It’s just not brotherly. It looks like showing off. It certainly doesn’t look like the shame Justin said he felt.
If you want to send out something called a pastoral letter, make it pastoral…What practical steps have you taken to help survivors, for instance?
And so on.
It’s a good letter and a tough one and it’s received quite a lot of comment. She got me thinking about what we would be doing today gathered together and all dressed up at the start of the great three days that lead to Easter through betrayal, denial and the disciples running for it…
At the weekend, the Revd Canon Prof James Woodward, Principal of Sarum College, Salisbury, wrote this article: Salisbury Under Siege – What Does it Mean to be an Easter People?. An excerpt:
19 Comments… In the gospel accounts of the resurrection, there is both fear and joy. Following Jesus is not a protection from the difficulties and challenges that face us in life. Being an Easter people does not mean that any of us will not require handkerchief to mop up our tears. All of us will know deep in our hearts what our lives, our world is like, and how much of a struggle it is. As human beings we have to deal with our fears and the reality of how little control we are able to exercise over circumstances and experiences.
It is into this condition of who we are and where we are that God can touch us with Easter life and hope. Easter peace is not the obliteration of our past or present, but the re-drawing of our lives into a new way of seeing. Faith can give us the opportunity for direction, redirection, meaning and depth.
As we live with complexity and uncertainty in Salisbury we have an opportunity to take this opportunity to work together in live for what is good. However partial limited our faith may be that always lies the possibility of transformation. We can be confident but we must safeguard against a triumphalism which does not listen carefully to human experience and its sensitivities. We can nurture faith that embraces doubt and in doing so can grows through openness and honesty.
Remember Salisbury in your prayers. Consider the longer view, the enduring truth that goodness is always stronger than evil. Love will conquer. Justice will prevail.
That will mean a change for us. It will also require a much stronger sense of the relational and our readiness to move on and beyond our internal dialogues and contestations to listen more carefully to human experience. We need space and time to share our story…
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church Janet Fife’s Letter – some reflections
Martin Sewell Archbishop Cranmer In Holy Week we should hold our Archbishops’ feet to the fire
Some Primatial Easter messages
Archbishops Richard Clarke and Eamon Martin
Archbishop Philip Freier
Presiding Bishop Michael Curry
Ally Barrett Reverend Ally First time in church?
James Eglinton The Herald Kirk should not be debasing the act of giving
0 CommentsPress release from Number 10
Queen approves appointment of Dean of Salisbury: 27 March 2018
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Canon Nicholas Charles Papadopulos to the Deanery of Salisbury.
Published 28 March 2018
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing Street
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Reverend Canon Nicholas Charles Papadopulos, MA, Canon Treasurer of Canterbury Cathedral and Director of Initial Ministerial Education 2 in the Diocese of Canterbury, to be appointed to the Deanery of Salisbury, following the resignation of the Very Reverend June Osborne, BA, on 14 July 2017.
The Reverend Canon Nicholas Papadopulos is aged 51. He studied History at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and Law at City University, London. He was called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1990 and practised at the criminal Bar for seven years. He trained for ministry at Ripon College Cuddesdon, and subsequently studied for his MA at King’s College, London. He served his title as Assistant Curate at St Mark Portsea in the Diocese of Portsmouth from 1999 to 2002. From 2002 to 2007 he was Senior Chaplain and Press Officer to the Bishop of Salisbury, and from 2007 to 2013 Vicar of Pimlico St Peter with Westminster Christ Church (St Peter’s Eaton Square) in the Diocese of London. Since 2013 he has been Canon Treasurer at Canterbury Cathedral and Director of Initial Ministerial Education 2 in the Diocese of Canterbury.
32 CommentsPress release from Number 10
Nomination of Suffragan Bishop of Tonbridge: 27 March 2018
The Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Simon David Burton-Jones to this post.
Published 27 March 2018
From: Prime Minister’s Office, 10 Downing StreetThe Queen has approved the nomination of the Venerable Simon David Burton-Jones, MA, BTh, Archdeacon of Rochester, in the Diocese of Rochester, to the Suffragan See of Tonbridge, in the Diocese of Rochester. He succeeds the Right Reverend Brian Colin Castle, MA, PhD, who resigned on the 30 November 2015.
That’s the press release in full. There are more details on the Rochester diocesan website: New Bishop of Tonbridge Announced.
11 CommentsSince the hearings concluded last week, there have been several further reports in addition to the letter from the archbishops and the response from Janet Fife.
The Church Times reported on both of those here: Sorry not enough, Archbishops’ letter says after IICSA, and a survivor agrees.
The BBC radio programme Sunday carried a lengthy report available to listen to here (starts at 28 minutes).
The Independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Anglican Church concluded three weeks of hearing this week. Phil Johnson, abuse survivor, talks to Emily Buchanan about what the hearings have meant to him. Bishop Alan Wilson, long term critic of the Church on its handling of clerical sex abuse cases, discusses the positives and negatives to have emerged. And Bishop Mark Sowerby, the deputy lead bishop for Safeguarding responds. Martin Bashir BBC Religion Correspondent provides analysis.
Martin Sewell has written at Archbishop Cranmer In Holy Week we should hold our Archbishops’ feet to the fire.
And Martyn Percy has written for Modern Church Church of England ‘no longer competent’ to manage safeguarding, says senior cleric.
The full article is available here.
14 CommentsSurviving Church has published this: Survivor’s Reply to Archbishops’ pastoral letter.
The author is Janet Fife.
Please read the whole letter.
18 CommentsFred Hiltz Primate of Canada ‘Standing under in order to understand’
Jonathan Clatworthy Château Clâteau Sex abuse and godly power
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church IICSA – Final reflections
Anna Norman-Walker Viamedia.News Is There Life for the Church After IICSA?
Andrew Lightbown Theore0 Talking of ++Justin: legality, honesty and rising above contempt.
Church Times Interview with Loretta Minghella, the new First Church Estates Commissioner
Loretta Minghella tells Paul Handley how the Church Commissioners are flexing their muscle
From the York diocesan website: Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse: Archbishops’ Joint Pastoral Letter
12 CommentsThe Archbishops of York and Canterbury have written a joint Pastoral Letter for wide circulation following the end of the hearing which took place over the last three weeks as part of the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA).
“We are writing to you to ask for your prayers as Holy Week begins and as the Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse has finished its hearing into matters in the Diocese of Chichester. Please will you pray this Holy Week especially for all those involved, and for all affected by safeguarding issues.”
Archbishops Sentamu and Justin hope that their letter can either be read out or distributed this weekend and at the start of Holy Week.
“We take very seriously all that has been heard by the Inquiry. Archbishop Justin said when he gave evidence last week that he had learned again through listening and reading the evidence given to the Inquiry, that we must not simply say sorry, but that we must also take action that demonstrates clearly that we have learnt the lessons. It is a fact that Bishops and Archbishops are now rightly required to listen, learn and act in accordance with safeguarding legislation and good practice.”
Please download the Archbishops’ letter below:
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
6 CommentsUpdated Thursday evening
The Court of Appeal has today dismissed the appeal by Jeremy Pemberton against the earlier judgement of the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
The judgement is now available online: Pemberton v Inwood [2018] EWCA Civ 564, with a printable version here.
There are numerous media reports:
Anglican Communion News Service Priest in same-sex marriage loses legal challenge to bishop’s “discriminatory” response
Guardian Gay hospital chaplain loses discrimination appeal against C of E
Christian Today Gay clergyman Jeremy Pemberton loses discrimination appeal against Church of England
Press Association via Premier Gay priest denied job after marrying partner loses discrimination appeal
BBC Gay priest Jeremy Pemberton’s discrimination appeal dismissed
Huffington Post Gay Priest Jeremy Pemberton Loses Discrimination Appeal Against The Church Of England
Newark Advertiser Jeremy Pemberton loses discrimination appeal
Nottingham Post Gay priest ‘naturally disappointed’ after his appeal over discrimination claim is dismissed
Church Times Bishop was in his rights to refuse Pemberton a licence, tribunal rules
Jeremy Pemberton has issued a press release, which is copied below the fold.
ACNS reports:
Commenting on today’s judgment, a Southwell and Nottingham diocesan spokesperson said: “We are pleased that the court has upheld the decision made with regards to the employment tribunal. We recognise that this has been a long and difficult process for many of those concerned, and we hold them in our thoughts and prayers.”
OneBodyOneFaith has issued a statement: Disappointment and gratitude as Pemberton case concludes
39 Comments“…The question now is less whether the bishop acted legally – that seems beyond doubt – but whether people want to continue to support this kind of discrimination against committed, loving couples as they seek to follow Christ. There is a real sense of the need for change, the will for change and the time for change.“
Updated Thursday morning
The transcript of the final day of taking evidence from live witnesses can be found here.
There will be no hearing tomorrow, Thursday. On Friday the final portions of some written statements will be read into the record, and that will be followed by statements from the lawyers representing various “core participants”.
Media reports:
Church Times
‘I am ashamed of the Church’, Archbishop Welby admits to IICSA
Christian Today
Archbishop of Canterbury goes before child sex abuse hearings
Justin Welby: Child sex abuse by priests will ‘destroy the Church’ if it continues
The Tablet
Archbishop Welby to give evidence at national inquiry into child sexual abuse
Archbishop Welby ‘appalled and ashamed’ of Church of England
Press Association via Daily Mail Abusers may be forgiven but can never be trusted again, Archbishop tells inquiry
The Times Abuse makes me ashamed of church, says Welby (£)
Guardian Justin Welby: sexual abusers can never be trusted again
Belfast Telegraph Archbishop tells child abuse inquiry he is ‘ashamed’ of Church
Abusers may be forgiven but can never be trusted again, Archbishop tells inquiry
Anglican Communion News Service
Archbishop of Canterbury gives evidence to Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse
Telegraph Justin Welby: I have learned to be ashamed of the Church of England
Religion News Service via Colorado Springs Gazette Archbishop of Canterbury: Church has failed to protect children from abuse
Stephen Parsons Surviving Church IICSA -reflections on Welby’s conclusions
6 Comments