Many years ago, as a child, I could be said to have had a fascination with bishops. I regarded these senior churchmen with respect and awe. They were the men of God who must, my child’s mind worked out, be incredibly holy, learned and generally impressive. My first encounter with Bishops en masse was at the Lambeth Conference in 1958. My school was in the Canterbury Precincts at the time and I would waylay them as they emerged from various services to ask for their autograph. I still have the autograph book, adorned with some wonderfully exotic names such as Geoffrey Tasmania, Kenneth Ontario, Hugh Mauritius & Seychelles and Thomas Zululand. I myself was confirmed at the hands of Geoffrey Fisher, whose reputation for cleverness exceeded anything I could imagine. If he believed and understood all the difficult bits of the Bible, who was I to have any problems with the obscure passages?
As life went on, I continued to look up to my ‘Fathers in God’, as they all were until recently, both as examples of godly life and superior understanding. But flaws began to appear, and I can still remember the shock of disappointment when I discovered that my local Bishop had used the same confirmation sermon on two separate occasions. Having recovered from that surprise I still expected them to be superior to my own ministry in the matter of pastoral skill and insight. Even here I began to see that they were subject to the same human limitations as I was.
Over the past few years I have begun to see that bishops are very similar to other clergy in most ways. They may be more experienced, better managers or better connected. It is not inappropriate to think of them as colleagues of other clergy, trying to do a difficult, sometimes stressful job. Fundamentally their work is not inherently superior to the work of other priests, most of whom work in parishes. This custom of thinking of bishops as somehow special has infected the church with a culture of deference which is not particularly helpful. It is bad for the bishops themselves and bad for those who idealise the role as I did, particularly as child.
A culture of deference backed up a certain narcissism of the part of some bishops has not been good for the church. By narcissism in the context of bishops, I am thinking of a tendency among some of them to adopt certain mannerisms so that everyone who meets them is made aware that they are encountering an important person. Narcissism can also make some bishops look a little too comfortable in their gorgeous robes and a little too ready to indulge and enjoy the fact that others might wish to bow in their presence.
Wallowing in a little narcissistic feeding is perhaps not in itself a serious matter. What is alarming is when bishops begin to believe that all the acquired self-importance is justified and real. Arriving at the top of an organisational pyramid whether it be a diocese or a Province is heady stuff for a new bishop. They now possess titles like Right Reverend or Most Reverend. Does the possession of such a title give them access to depths of wisdom that they did not have before?
The greatest problem for any bishop, and this applies especially for those in charge of a diocese, is that their role and self-perception is going to be bound up with the geographical area they preside over and the church structures that are found there. An Archbishop will do everything in his power to preserve the church institution, just as the Diocesan bishop will work to preserve his diocese from financial or other forms of threat. Loyalty to the institution in this way will of course be damaging when it is at the expense of other values, like justice, care for others or integrity.
The IICSA hearings have shown us quite clearly how some bishops and Archbishops seem to have been seduced by a sense of loyalty to the institutions they preside over and, in the process, they have let go of integrity. In summary it has been said that protection of the Church institution has been found sometimes to be more important than the needs of victims of church abuse. Reading once more the booklet produced in February 2018 for General Synod, ‘We asked for Bread but You gave us Stones’, brings one back into touch with the sheer frustration of victims to get the church and its bishops to listen and to act.
What is the charge that we should bring up against those who put the institution before its suffering victims? I think the short answer is a failure of integrity. Even when I have discovered over my time in the church that bishops are not necessarily cleverer or more spiritual than the rest of us, I have still consistently expected one thing of them. That one thing is also what I ask of myself -the gift of utter integrity. By this word I am referring to a consistency of words and action, a person who is a true WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) person. I do not want my bishop to be a person that I project on to as I did as a child or a young clergyman. I know they will have limitations like the rest of us, but I would hope that they were always aware of the fact that sometimes they fail. Some of the behaviour that has been hinted at in the IICSA hearings as well as in the Bread and Stones document speaks of this betrayal of integrity. Such behaviour does enormous damage to the Church. Failure and wrong actions are one thing but the cultivation of an atmosphere of lying, cover-up and deliberate avoidance of victims/survivors and their needs is always corrosive to the well-being of the wider church.
The greatest challenge for the Church of England in this post IICSA period is not just to do the right thing for survivors. It is for the Church leadership to embrace this concept of integrity and require it as an essential part of all relationships between bishops and others and church abuse survivors. Any failure of integrity, and it is still endemic in the church, is like a cancer. A cancer eats and destroys good tissue eventually destroying the host. If there could be a slogan for the Church of England now, it would be something along the lines of ‘Make the Church a place of integrity again’. Such integrity must start at the very highest levels of governance in the Church.
Thank you for this post Stephen. I remember as a young man the divinity professor whose usual mode of dress in lecturing us students was a collar and tie one day arriving in clerical dress presumably for some ecclesiastical function. I became immediately aware of a change in my feelings toward him because of this. This is not the main thing, but clerical dress and in the case of Bishops most noticeably so has a way of exercising a power of deference that is more than it should be. More generally the reintroduction of the word priest after the New Testament brought with it a claim to a personal power which those others in the church (“the laos”) had no part of. Ordination as we began to see it became something “of God” and not just of the ecclesiastical denomination within which we served – and a good way of being “sniffy” about those serving outside our club. Peacock’s feathers with a divine imprimatur like this is a heady power whether viewed from above or below. Be you ever so high you cannot be as high as the priest. I think the clay feet we are seeing uncovered ought to bring us humility remembering that God “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble”.
Excellent post, Stephen. Bishops do begin to believe their own myth. But all human institutions have a tendency to form into castes, it’s not just the church. To be fair, although I’m sure some powerful people are defending the institution that gives them their power, some are simply defending colleagues whom they believe are entitled to their loyalty. First paragraph, second sentence, your autocorrect has rendered “awe” as aware!
Thank you, Stephen, for a thoughtful and clarifying post.
Integrity is indeed the key. We’ll know when we are close to achieving it when we listen to all victims of abuse instead of blaming them, or silencing them.
Even with all that the IICSA has brought to light, one must note the lack of study of the fate of disabled people in church. A group still widely regarded as too unreliable, dangerous or ‘stupid’ to be worth talking to. A group still far too easy to scapegoat and walk past. A group who are highly vulnerable, and who at present are left in the hands of a few powerful charities who use therapeutic processes on them that are widely regarded as abusive. And, too often, in the hands of every predator in our churches. The response of most of the House of Bishops has been silence for many years. A silence also present within the central Safeguarding teams, interestingly; I’ve been waiting for an answer from them for two and a half years, now.
Little wonder that the church does not wish to explore this facet of its past and present. It’s painful stuff. “There be dragons”, as they used to write on the old maps for the Mariners. But exploring it is essential. One cannot sweep the very worst of the conduct of some people in some churches under the proverbial rug and leave it there, thinking it has gone. It has not. And no longer can some rely on dismissing disabled voices as irrelevant, malicious or incompetent. One must hope that IICSA has stripped away those reliances, and encouraged the church to find its courage once more.
Thank you, Anna for your observations about disabled people. I am acutely aware also of the mentally afflicted and the chronically disadvantaged because of poverty and background. The list is endless. I once wrote a piece about a book by Jean Vanier about the church caring for the disabled and mentally afflicted. One of the things that struck me about Vanier’s approach was that there was absolutely no room among the carers for anything that might be construed as status or hierarchy. The needs of the community made ordinary status posturing completely redundant. Although the needs of the disabled are not a primary focus of this blog, I remain concerned for power dynamics in the church and this will include the care of the weakest in our society.
The needs of the disabled when victims of abuse at the hands of the church are very much part of the picture. Definitely not a general comment by me about disability care and church. I’m talking about disabled people who are targeted by predators in our churches, and then routinely ignored thereafter, or portrayed as the problem if they complain. Their voices form no part of the IICSA investigation.
Unfortunately, most victims get treated the same way.
Agreed. The difference is that the Inquiry process heard from some of the others, and the Safeguarding procedures are (in theory) being altered to make them better for those like them in future.
Without a word from the disabled victims during the Inquiry (to my knowledge), the Safeguarding teams do not appear to be factoring in the additional criteria which are vital for safe and respectful, meaningful assistance for disabled victims. Examples: Interpreting communication differences. Understanding additional delays in reporting. Achieving useful evidence by being aware of differences in best outcomes, for example with some cognitive disabilities, revisiting the scene of the events will yield much better evidence recall. Good research around this.
Do those in church safeguarding processes know any of this? I doubt it.
It continues to be a concern that there appears to be so little understanding of any of this, in the process, thus far.
Good points.
I have the impression (from reading the IICSA transcripts) that many staff of CoE safeguarding teams have social work backgrounds. If they remain registered Social Workers then their Standards of Proficiency state that they “must understand how the means of communication should be modified to address and take account of a range of factors including age, capacity, learning ability and physical ability”.
From the point of view of IICSA, these are “threshold standards”.
The ‘threshold standard’ here appears to be to entirely ignore emails from disabled people for two and a half years and counting. To my knowledge, that forms no part of the required Social Worker professional standards, nor any other set of applicable standards. it is indeed a mystery as to what is worrying them so much that they daren’t engage at all.
Anna, if you think that a registered Social Worker has failed to act on your concerns, then in addition to considering making contact with IICSA, you might find it helpful to read this,
http://www.hcpc-uk.org/audiences/membersofthepublic/concerns/
In IICSA’s Church of England section of the Inquiry, it has so far only looked at Chichester Diocese and Peter Ball. It may be that the issues you rightly point us to haven’t arisen in those contexts.
Early next year there will be hearings on the Church of England more generally and its handling of abuse. That might be a good forum for the concerns you raise. Why don’t you contact the Inquiry with your concerns? Details are on their website.
Disabled people have been targeted in that Diocese.
That is a tragedy. Were they children, and was it sexual abuse? IICSA particularly concerns child sexual abuse – we could do with a similar enquiry tackling sexual, non-sexual and other abuse of vulnerable adults.
Yes, I’m aware of the purpose and location of the IICSA enquiries, and the ages of the individuals who are relevant to the Inquiry. I’ve read every word of the Inquiry and been following it throughout.
The gap between our perception of those above us, and the reality of what they are really like, has narrowed. I too find it still very distressing to have my illusions shattered.
It’s amost impossible to live life in a vacuum. The speed of information flow rises inexorably. There is a new transparency. You cannot hide behind robes or vestments, white coats or titles. Everything that can be known about a person very often is, or soon will be. As soon as you assume a position of power you are right there in the spotlight of public gaze. Introvert or extrovert there’s no escape.
Can a person ascending to Leadership acquire integrity? A proportion of us were preconditioned to believe they must be “good” to have been called to high office. A cynical minority weren’t at all surprised to see the mighty fall.
From experience, I would observe that a person’s character flaws are magnified by increasing public position. Partly this is because of the number of people they now influence in office. A little yeast spreads through the whole batch. And of course the oft underestimated pressures and difficulties of office often lead to mistakes both of commission and omission.
What humbles me is perhaps I could myself have made the colossal blunders these bishops and more have made. There but for the grace of God…
I suspect that a similar attitude lies underneath some of the squeamishness we have seen in prosecuting these crimes of abuse (IICSA). And it offers some reason for the haste in reinstatement to office that many of us were dismayed by.
But surely as a society and as a church we must join together in setting and upholding standards. Acting with integrity would mean championing those very values. And for those doubting and obsessing over semantics I recall the legal principle of “res ipsa loquitor”: translated: “the thing speaks for itself”. What we heard and saw was SO obviously wrong. Let’s fix this and do it now.
The new transparency actually helps us here, if we are tempted to dither and hide. Covering up doesn’t work any more. Sooner or later the truth will out. So let’s all act with integrity and put this thing right. And let’s continue to speak up and call it out in the testimony of “two or three witnesses”.
My sister was confirmed by the then Bishop of Guildford, Dr Montgomery Campbell (later Bishop of London) during the bitter winter of 1947 when we waded through deep snow. This was at a middle-of-the road C of E church – no Eucharistic vestments of any kind, and I didn’t know such things existed in the C of E. The bishop wore his rochet and chimère, and carried his crozier. A few years later at my confirmation in an Anglo-Catholic church, the same bishop appeared in cope and mitre of the traditional kind – certainly awe-inspiring! But he also preached the same sermon on the same text as he had done at my sister’s confirmation, and even then, at the age of 13, I was rather tickled by this!
At the time, the bishop seemed a rather remote, somewhat austere person, but he certainly commanded respect. Many years later I learned that he had a keen, even slightly wicked, sense of humour.
These recollections don’t really add to the debate, but we won’t see his kind again.