The Father Oliver Coss Column: Our church needs to wake up
It’s been an unpleasant couple of weeks in the Church of England, and while there’s been a good deal of fallout following the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury it has been the victims and survivors of abuse who have been foremost in my thoughts.
The prolific sadist John Smyth seemingly dedicated much of his life to creating the circumstances where he could physically and spiritually abuse a huge number of children and young people, both in the UK and in Zimbabwe and South Africa. The only thing that comes close in terms of this outrage is the protracted effort, over fifty years, to cover-up or diminish the appalling violence and harm perpetrated by Smyth.
There have been some who have seemed surprised or shocked at the revelation published just four weeks ago in a review written by Keith Makin. They should not be. The repeated calls for justice and even just for a sympathetic ear to listen, gradually became formed into many articles, reports, and even books written about what Smyth did, and about those who failed to stop him. Andrew Graystone’s seminal book ‘Bleeding for Jesus’ comprehensively accounts for so much of what happened, and he and so many of the others who have campaigned with him have often prophesied that it would eventually blow the doors off the Church of England.
Justin Welby’s role in all this is as a very new archbishop, who (in over a decade in Lambeth Palace) never got to treating this case with the seriousness that it warranted. In many other respects he will leave the Church with a stronger and safer safeguarding regime than has ever been known, but it was this case in particular (though there are doubtless others) that sank his credibility. Others named in the same review seem to be holding their tongues and hoping it blows over: to them I say, ‘believe it possible that you may be mistaken’.
Our local parishes and chaplaincies work incredibly hard, with volunteers who undergo many hours of training and even more hours of meetings, to create safe and healthy churches that are accountable and welcoming. And I suppose that the hardest thing to take about all this is that this robust approach seems not to be matched, in either robustness of accountability, by our senior leaders. I hope and pray that this is a watershed moment, and I’m perfectly content to carry on working toward it being one, where we do see substantive change in how our church is led. Nevertheless, it can no longer be permitted to fail so badly.
For those who pray, this will be an apposite moment, not least as Advent approaches, to ask in our prayers that our church be awakened from its sleepy neglectfulness, and come anew to the aid of those whose peaceful progress through this world has been so shamefully violated.