The IICSA report on Chichester Diocese and the case of Bishop Peter Ball finally appeared today (Thursday). file:///C:/Users/Owner/Desktop/inquiry-publishes-report-diocese-chichester-and-peter-ball.htm The rehearsal of events in and around the diocese was a damning and sad indictment of a dysfunctional culture in both the Cathedral and in the upper echelons of the Diocese and the national Church.
I have not read the whole report. This is partly because much of it seems to be a rehearsing of many of the facts that we have already heard during the IICSA hearings of last March and July. Also, this blog with its self-imposed word limit, allows me only to look at a few issues. Two words, however, struck me fairly early on in reading the document. They sum up many of the issues around the use and abuse of power that operates in the church. It is the problem of a church and its difficulties with managing power that is at the heart of this blog’s concern.
In the introduction the report spoke of ‘clericalism’ and ‘tribalism’. Both words speak to us of ways of avoiding fear and vulnerability. Clericalism operates as a system to benefit one particular group; it will always seek to protect the clergy and promote their interests as much as it can. It operates like a masonic network and it will naturally always privilege the special rights of the clergy over the laity. In some settings, clergy will use a coded language to shut others out from their ‘in’ conversations. The use of these techniques to cement the clerical caste together, is no doubt to make the clergy feel secure. To be important as part of this group, is to rise more easily above anxiety.
The tribalism that the report referred to is a variant of the clericalism. The ‘tribes’ that were identified in the Chichester diocese context were to do with churchmanship interests. Fellow clergy were seen not as colleagues, but as members of a friendly tribe or a hostile one. The other side, the ‘them’, might be either lay people or members of a type of churchmanship disapproved of by your group. The Chichester Diocese for a long period has attracted to itself clergy practising a fairly thorough-going version of Anglo-Catholicism. This has its own set of cultural and theological idiosyncrasies. Ranged against this Anglo-Catholic group are a considerable number of members of the other Anglican grouping, those identifying with the conservative group REFORM. The close juxtaposition of these two versions of Anglicanism, made sometimes for a fractious diocesan culture. It was all too easy for an incumbent with a loyalty to one or other of these groups to put that loyalty above the needs of a survivor. A victim of abuse might well not find a sympathetic pastoral response if he/she named a perpetrator who was part of the same tribe to which the would-be helper owed allegiance. In some cases, such rejection by a priest could lead to the abused individual taking his or her life.
The description of this culture of clericalism and tribalism in the Chichester Diocese is chilling to read about. No doubt there are tonight many individual consciences that are being stirred to consider whether they could have done anything more to make a difference. An episode recorded in the report describes the atmosphere at one stage in part of the Cathedral congregation. This also appears to have been fed by similar tribal elitist assumptions. During the 90s, and early years of this century, there was some confusion about the precise boundaries in safeguarding responsibilities at the Cathedral. One notorious abuser, who acted as a steward in the Cathedral, succeeded in avoiding challenge or confrontation over decades. This was, in part, due to a failure of communication between Diocese and Cathedral. No doubt, the similar dynamics of tribalism and rivalry between the two were playing their part in this situation of poor communication. The Diocesan Safeguarding Officer was denied easy access to Cathedral records and other information. When she finally spoke to parents of boys who had been abused, these same parents found themselves shunned and ostracised by members of the cathedral congregation. In a comment the report notes that some of the shunners were those who associated socially with the senior clergy at the Cathedral. Again, we appear to be observing a pattern endemic in the story of church abuse. The victims often become the enemy because they are upsetting the status quo. The forces of clericalism and tribalism seem to rally round to support a perpetrator rather than the victims. It is hard to see how this collusion to defend a guilty party (including Peter Ball) can be broken unless the responsibility for investigation is taken right out of the hands of people thinking tribally.
There are many other points in the report that I am not of course able to cover in a thousand words. But the criticisms, whether of Archbishop Carey, the central Church authorities or the various officers in the Diocese of Chichester, all seem to come back to the fundamental issue of self-protection and fear. For Archbishop Carey, there seems, as I have suggested before, to have been a large dose of naivety spiced with a strong instinct to protect and preserve ‘his’ Church. The same mistakes which allowed so many offenders to roam the Diocese of Chichester unchallenged for so long, hang on this desire to protect the institution and especially those who served it as clergy. As I suggested in my previous blog, the instinct to do anything and everything to protect an institution will be particularly strong when the same organisation is the one that which gives you self-esteem and identity. This ‘institutional narcissism’, as we described it, will be especially strong among the top officials of an organisation. From America we have been hearing a lot about ‘no collusion and no obstruction’ on the part of the White House when faced with the facts of the interference by the Russian state in the American elections. Any admitting of Russian interference in the elections would have the effect of undermining the legitimacy of Trump’s presidency, quite apart from uncovering criminal behaviour on his part. In the narrative of the IICSA account we catch glimpses of another organisation – the Church- that is overwhelmed with fear rather than confidence. This observation could be made about the entire Church of England at present rather than just the Diocese of Chichester. The narrative of secrecy, cover-ups, failures of communication is a language of fear and even the collapse of confidence. Once again, we beg the Church to come out of such behaving as though it is scared of the truth. We implore it to face openly the traumas of the past and work with men and women of goodwill to build a new future of honesty, truth and openness.
This is a very cogent summary of what I too have observed. Many members of congregations will be shocked to read such an analysis; it is something “we” do not wish to know. Keep saying it, Stephen!
There was extensive coverage of this Report on national BBC news last night (9 May 19) including interviews and analysis.
Fear takes the path of least resistance. Omertà has been the path taken for the most.
But the strategy of silence and cover up will be changing as news of all this begins to seep into the mainstream.
Human decisions are seldom based on objective facts. We trust people we believe in. We follow their lead, often blindly, until we don’t. That turning point comes when we are brutally let down by their behaviour coming to light.
We turn against people we once trusted and we turn right against them. And we do it en masse.
Looking back at a skilled and charming manipulator like Peter Ball, with friends in high places, the turning against them can be delayed by decades. But when it comes, it comes. No one looking for a career in high society, be it clerical or otherwise, would be standing within a thousand miles of PB now.
I thank God that I’m not a person of influence in a high place. Because they’re just like us, but their mistakes and naivety are magnified a hundred times and exposed repeatedly and mercilessly to the public gaze. Like now.
Silence is now ineffective. The appalling facts are weekly being exposed on national TV.
If fear is the driver, any Diocese NOT disclosing and dealing effectively and honestly with its abuse skeletons is now in for serious public exposure. Leaders will be anxious to ensure they are the first to get their houses in order, not the last.
The turning point is like a tide. It’s unstoppable.
I am reminded of the various groups at Corinth -see 1 Corinthinans chapter one, and also Proverbs 29 verse 25 The fear o9f man provides a snare. Thanks Stephen.
The ‘tribalism’ in Chichester diocese rings true. The only person I knew who did not fall under Peter Ball’s spell when he was Bishop of Lewes, was my vicar Gordon Rideout. Ball was very high Anglo Catholic; Rideout was Church Society (Calvinist conservative evangelical, this was before Reform was founded). He once said to me of Ball, ‘In my experience people who really pray talk about it less.’ Which was quite an astute comment, but deeply ironic considering Rideout’s later conviction of historical child abuse
I think you had to have known Ball in those days to grasp how powerful was the spell he cast over people (except Rideout). He had the whole area in thrall – it was a bit like the spell cast by the Kennedys in the 1950s and 1960s, when people likened the White House to Camelot.
Nowadays we are much more cynical, and that’s probably a good thing. But I was thoroughly taken in by Rideout, as I have been by a handful of other really expert con artists. I have some sympathy with those who were deceived – though none for those who, undeceived, still refuse to do the right thing.
About Peter Ball – he was feted at the annual youth camp, but his comment on the wives of the bishops at Lambeth left me silent while everyone else in the tent laughed. No thank you! I never trusted him. Nasty egotist, brought in to ‘save’ the diocese from secularism. They relied on personalities, while acting like a secret society of the privileged few, feeling free to be rude and cruel to whoever crossed their paths.
In a way you were fortunate to hear Ball say something unpleasant at an early stage, since it made you distrust him. I never heard him say anything untoward, or saw him do anything out of order. I did hear him speak to an ecumenical evangelical renewal group – and hold the room in the palm of his hand. I have always thought the monk in ‘Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass’ was Ball.
I never really trusted Ball, but only because in those days I didn’t trust anyone who was Catholic or high church. But I fell hook, line and sinker for Gordon Rideout’s holy man act, because he was eminently ‘sound’. I read the IICSA report on Rideout today, and it made me feel sick.
Chichester still is tribal and secret. Our parish priest is part of a ‘religious’ society which, those of us who know how to read the meaning of SSC, indicates that he is part of a network which does not allow women priests near the altar of his church, MY parish church, whose congregation has never been given the opportunity to declare their objection to his exclusive attitude. I have chorused this in various places, even to the new bishop, when he was new. Nothing has changed in the jobs for the boys set-up, and now the Archdeacon is also a member, so no complaints will get further than his ear.
The Safeguarding Team are the parish priest and the churchwarden. This says it all, even though outside telephone numbers and contacts are given for those who might need them.
The General Synod has decided, rightly or wrongly, that we are to live with those whose attitudes are less than inclusive. That is a good thing if it means a tolerance to those who have not travelled far enough along the road to realise that the earth is not flat. It becomes problematic when we find ourselves willingly or unwillingly party to the creation of a walled garden, ie a world created and defended by those who want to impose restrictions on others. That phenomenon can manifest itself in a church which pursues a particular narrow line, be it narrowly biblical or narrowly ritualistic or something else insidious. In those circumstances I consider it my calling to take every opportunity to remind those within the garden gently that there is a world outside. I have twice recently written at length to clergymen who have, in my view, either misbehaved or said something stupid from a privileged position. I do not look for agreement only to know that I have thereby rattled the cage. One must not let oneself be bullied, and one must look out for others who may be! I realise, though, that not everyone in a position of vulnerability in such circumstances is able to defend him or herself. That to me is the big challenge we have.
Thank you Rosina. As I had not written my piece before writing my reaction, I had not appreciated that there is less about churchmanship in the report than in the actual hearings which I followed fairly closely. Thus I inserted stuff into my comments which was not really drawn directly out of the report. Having admitted to that, there were revealed in the report a variety of underlying theological tensions, the role of the priest, the access to forgiveness and a dislike of women that reflect theological perspectives of a fairly marked kind. Your stuff about jobs for the boys and the unhealthy prolonged ‘reign’ of Bishop Kemp cannot have created a healthy set-up or atmosphere in the diocese. The theological issues in the diocese will have to be explored another day, but only indirect evidence of the problems is found in this report.
I do hope the currently higher profile bears fruit. My problems have mostly been caused by different things. Indifference, prejudice against women, mistaken loyalty to one in your tribe. But also, a huge lack of training as to how to deal with those who may have been abused. Even recently, where I am treated warmly, as a colleague and one of the team, I have not been offered tea and sympathy, I have had to ask, I have been hived off to see a counsellor, I have been shouted at with the stabby finger by the highly placed man who should have been able to support me. Most clergy, in my experience at least, simply don’t know how to react. More training please, many of these things are counter intuitive.
I would endorse all of the comments made. I read the full report (and all the evidence as it came out). There are a few painful solecisms, that might easily have been removed under the eye of a trained editor. In addition, I found it somewhat meandering.
Whilst I have no formal connection with the diocese, I attended services in every parish between 2009 and 2013 – in other words at the fag end of the Hind era. I think it would be fair to say that morale was then below rock bottom, especially in the Lewes area, and that several people who had come to Sussex from elsewhere remarked to me that they were astonished by what they had found. Attendance in the east of East Sussex was as bad as anything I have seen in East Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, north Bedfordshire or the Brecklands.
Mention has been made of the toxic tribalism. I think this was also attributable to two structural factors:
1. There was still a high proportion of two or three parish benefices in rural areas. This contrasted strongly with other south-eastern dioceses, such as Canterbury, Chelmsford and Winchester, where rural benefices were starting to have ten or more parishes for obvious economic reasons (and Chichester was then in some financial distress). The effect of creating such monster benefices is to dilute the influence of the stipendiary minister. The priest/minister perforce has a greater degree of influence where s/he is in a more intimate relationship with his/her flock. Of course, there are significant problems with large benefices, but it has struck me that ‘clericalism’ is less of a problem in dioceses that have followed that course.
2. Ancient landscape patterns in Sussex have ensured that settlements and lines of communication have evolved on a north-south axis. Absent the A27 there are scarcely any roads running from east-west, and during the Kemp/Hind years little of the A27 was a dual carriageway and travel was very slow. The diocesan bishop is based at one extreme of the county (as is, of course, the case elsewhere) with the diocesan offices at Hove. To some extent Kemp’s 1984 area scheme made sense because of the travel issues, but the formation of cabals and coteries was probably facilitated by geography as much as culture. Scarcely anyone knew of Hind east of Eastbourne; Warner is the first diocesan since Wilson to make the effort to know the whole of his jurisdiction.
Benn comes out of this affair very badly, but what struck me was that Kemp was, for all his learning, a truly awful diocesan: he was only really fit for one of the ecclesiastical history chairs. I was once rebuked on TA for stating this (on the dubious grounds that my comment might offend his widow, Kenneth Kirk’s daughter, now also deceased). Kemp should be taught in seminaries as a textbook example of how not to do things.
Also, most of the abuse took place in the Lewes area: one of the omissions was whether Ball knew of the abuse occurring under his charge, and what he…
The word limit has got you, froghole! Could you post the rest on another post?
did about it.
Giggle! Excellent post, though. As per. Thanks.
Interesting comment on Peter Ball from Matthew Parris’s Time column today:
‘Predatory preacher
Staying on things spiritual, I’ve had a text following my Times column last Saturday about the charismatic paedophile Bishop Peter Ball. It comes from my friend Andrew Mitchell MP, who was at Rugby School. “. . . I knew him: he was utterly mesmeric. The only preacher ever at Rugby who preached to 800 boys in chapel and was heard in complete silence and rapt attention. I stayed with him at the Community of the Glorious Ascension in Watchet in Somerset. He blessed me! He was quite extraordinarily charismatic and I was completely taken in!!” Andrew, never meek, escaped. Ball chose his victims carefully.’
I agree with Andrew Mitchell’s comments. Ball had the most extraordinary personal magnetism.