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.