The Church of England is not a safe place; and its bishops have failed to take leadership to rectify its ongoing safeguarding failings.
Numerous “lessons learned reviews” highlight the complicity of bishops in failing to make the Church a safe space. And despite promises to learn from past mistakes, recommendations in these reviews are rarely carried out.
In October 2020, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) made numerous recommendations to the Church of England. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York said that they accepted the recommendations in full. Yet today, five years on, those recommendations have not been implemented.
Bishops do not hold each other accountable. Rather, the structures of the Church of England and the Archbishops’ Council serve to protect bishops. The Church Commissioners even fund lawyers to prepare responses to complaints at the initial stage, effectively blocking complaints from even being investigated.
The Bishops of the Church of England have lost their moral authority and should not be given automatic right to a seat in the House of Lords.
Of course, bishops in the House of Lords are not all bad. And some good has come of their presence. But the same could be said of the leadership of many other groups – yet those other groups do not get automatic seats in the House of Lords.
The Church of England has repeatedly and consistently failed to act on abuse allegations; and victims and survivors of church-related abuse are persistently re-abused and re-traumatised by systems designed to shut them up and protect the bishops and the Church’s institutions.
By refusing to act in a moral way, the Church of England bishops, as a group, have abrogated their automatic right to seats in the House of Lords. If they can’t police themselves, they should not be involved in making laws for others.
They should be removed from the House of Lords as quickly and as speedily as possible.
If you agree, please sign and share this petition: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/700563.
We owe you a great debt unvovering what must be on a scale as great or even greater than Mr Bates vs The Post Office re- Governance/Accountability etc. {have followed ‘ key parts of the Publc Enquiry, born and brought up attending the same primary school as the chair-Sir Wyn Wiliams- outstanding with top class council [Jason Beer KC]}
Is viewerenquiries@Channel4.co.uk on your ‘radar’ {Kathy Newman} and ‘link’ House of Lords with CHARITY COMMISSION and see if it has ‘traction’ to keep pushing for major reform of the Instituions preceeded by an ‘outside’ chaired independant rewiew- time scale to run in ‘parallel’ with ABC replacement- wonn’t be easy, likely huge ‘puhsback’- College of Bishops wanting to write Terms of Reference would be a disaster indeed!
** Prof Dame Sandra Dawson and Dr. Katy Steward are worth listening to their evidance on the Post Office IT Enquiry 12th and 13th Nov 024.
FYI -I sent a note to Chhannel 4 yesterday suggesting they investigate what I considar to be the un-ethical model within the Institutions of Common Fund/Parish share when Diocesan Boards of Finance through the Endowments and Glebe Measure Act in 1976 dioceses took all endowments and glebe land off parish churches and incumbents under a legal agreement where they agreed to pay stipends, pensions, and provide accommodation for incumbents of parish churches and were ever only invited to make voluntary contribution from their independent church charity registered with the Charity Commission into these Boards also registered with the Charity Commission. These Boards have access into the Church Commissioners with substantial funds to pay stipends, pensions, housing and have no need to ask or necessarily expect these church charities to make contributions to these Boards.
It doesn’t mean that ‘parish churches’ wouldn’t ask for financial contributions £ from its church members- they would, and decide to spend it on their own priorities eg: Foodbanks, children’s and school ministry, youth work, care and maintenance of the building, support for those in need etc.
Please feel free to come if I can be of any help, many thanks again for all your work.
Thank you for hosting this wonderful, authoritative blog.
Carey and Welby have fallen from grace. Cottrell demonstrates that he is wholly uneconomical with demonstrable untruths.
The Cottrell Petition,with currently near 36700 signatures, provides a notice-board on which Janet Fife has added a powerful comment of ‘no confidence’. This site places Cottrell in the stocks: there is a wealth of cogent denunciations. Long may the Cottrell Petition run and run. And the Petition to remove The automatic right of Bishops to sit in the House of Lords is most timely. The bishops have lost all credibility : just one has called publicly for Cottrell’s resignation. It is a reasonable presumption that a climate of fear predominates among their Lordships.
I doubt the CofE has much of a future without major reconstitution. I see no justification for it to retain its present privileged status under the constitution.
I write as someone who has had his career blighted by at least one senior Bishop and the said Bishop’s vicar acolyte whose name is familiar to readers of the Church Times. For further and better particulars, kindly see link to “RICHARD CHARTRES Wikipedia” under BISHOP.
The vicar’s Flat 3 was let to a senior church official who absent-mindedly mislaid over £5 million. The same Wikipedia site provides chapter and verse through a succinct Gov.UK confirmation which will also be found on the “DIOCESE OF LONDON” Wikipedia link under the
heading ‘Fraud’.
I must correct my previous vomment. After several months, the references contained withon the Richard Chartres Wikipedia entry regarding fraud by NIHHA, of which Chartres was President, has been removed, doubtless by a Chartres well-wisher. Slow off the mark. Ditto, French version!
Re Richard Chartres wikipedia entry, the paragraphs removed (concerning fraudulent arrears claims by NIHHA) can still be read in full by opening up the amendments link at the foot of the Wikipedia entry. NIHHA had a vile record of harassing tenants and demanding undue arrears of rent. Gillean Craig argued that Chartres’ role as NIHHA President was p”purely titular” – an assertion that would be laughed out of court. An AGM report of a lavish gathering informed me of Chartres’ presence together with the Duke of Gloucester and Christopher Chope MP whose brief was transport, not housing.
Hugh sinclair M.A. (Oxon) in Jurisprudence