At the conclusion of a very well-written piece about the Matt Ineson affair https://archbishopcranmer.com/shabby-and-shambolic-the-cofe-still-conspires-against-truth-and-justice-in-historic-sexual-abuse/, Martin Sewell asks a pertinent question. Who is in charge of the Church of England? Who, to be more precise, issues press statements through a spokesman at very short notice offering to explain the terms of the review about Matt’s case? I have a personal interest in this press release as I decided to put Matt’s statement (with his permission) on my blog early on Wednesday morning. This did seem to help circulation and provoked supportive comment on Thinking Anglicans and elsewhere. The Church Times on-line on Wednesday quoted a ‘spokesman for the NST’ as saying ‘The Church is committed to an independent lesson-learning review into its handling of the Trevor Devamanikkam case, and the terms of reference and reviewer are soon to be announced……’ This statement to the Church Times, incorporated into Hattie Williams’ article, appeared within 12 hours (including hours of darkness) of the press statement from Matt. At one level the statement is a typical piece of press-release speak; at another it contains a statement of policy which belongs to and affects the Church at the highest level. Both Archbishops of our Church had become openly involved in the Ineson case through the IICSA probe and it would seem that every official statement on the topic has the potential to help or possibly harm the interests of the Archbishops themselves. We can say that the person who made the decision to issue the outwardly anodyne statement was a person of great influence within the structure. You do not give the task of issuing press statements to a junior member of staff when major policy is being spelt out and indirectly the reputations of both Archbishops are at stake.
Martin, in his article, helpfully lists all the potential candidates for making this official statement about how the review (and presumably all similar reviews in future) is to be conducted. Was it the Archbishops, the House of Bishops, the Archbishop’s Council, the National Safeguarding Team, the National Safeguarding Director, the incoming National Safeguarding Director, the Lead Safeguarding Bishop, the Secretary General of the Archbishops’ Council and General Secretary of General Synod? In surveying this impressive list of potential candidates, it is not unreasonable to exclude all the official groupings as there was simply not enough time for them to have gathered to discuss how best to respond to Matt’s press release. Matt made his journey to Church house on Tuesday, hoping to see Roger Singlelton to discuss the way he had been faced with an effective ultimatum requiring him to agree to the terms of his review. Matt was given till Wednesday 31 July to acquiesce in the terms of the review which had been laid out by Church House officials and the Safeguarding Team. He issued his Press release on Tuesday evening and I published it on my blog the following morning. Hattie Williams on the Church Times was given the Church’s response the same day. The ability to respond with such alacrity had surely to be the work of a single person working alone or with a very small consultative group. He/She had to be important enough to have been entrusted with the oversight over the whole process. The press release was effectively made on behalf of all the stakeholders mentioned above. The one person that probably did not have any hand in making the statement is the incoming National Safeguarding director, Melissa Carslake. As a new broom in the process of Safeguarding, many people are welcoming her considerable experience and fresh eye. They hope this will make a difference to the way safeguarding decisions are made right across the board. The one thing that will, in all probability, put her on the back foot is this early discovery that there exist in the Church of England people or groups who, with a minimum amount of consultation, can take authority to make or reiterate policy on behalf of the whole. I understand that she was in Church House on Tuesday when Matt was trying to speak to someone over the conditions being laid down for his review. What does she think about an individual/small group deciding off their own bat that Matt’s issues could be brushed to one side?
Matt’s complaints about the process of review of past cases cannot be brushed to one side. Neither can the power to decide on possible changes to the way reviews are conducted be devolved to mysterious unnamed individuals or groups operating in Church House. It is commonly asserted that the Church of England is supposed to be ’episcopally led and synodically governed’. …. however is this true? Given that the collegiate bodies cannot react swiftly this leads us to the key question. Where does the effective day to day power lie, and are we sure this is a safe repository, given recent events? We are forced to conclude that the powers that rapidly make important decisions in Church House are neither the bishops nor elected members of Synod. The decision to ignore Matt’s protest required a statement of church policy which is far more than a point of minor administration. We need, in other words, to ask this question of the Church of England. Are you sure that your Church is being governed and managed in the best possible way when decisions about such things as review processes are being made in dark corners beyond proper scrutiny? Are you happy that the reputations of the nominal heads of the Church, the Archbishops and Bishops, are being sometimes damaged by the decisions of unelected advisors and officials secreted in Church House? The two decisions we know about this week, the refusal to speak to Matt on Tuesday and the issuing of a press release attempting to override his earlier press release, were both wrong. The consequences of both decisions could yet be fateful for the reputation for the Church. If these errors are eventually acknowledged, as they may well be soon, who will be held responsible? Will the Archbishop of Canterbury show true leadership in offering an apology to Matt both for past failures and the shambles of this week? What is stopping him now? Is it the same apparent influence that prevented him turning around in his seat at IICSA and speaking personally to Matt? The question out of all these events is the one we began with. Who has the real power in the Church of England?
The question of who is in charge is important and pressing. Last week the Church Times carried a report of a seminar urging a fresh emphasis on middle-sized churches. That might seem unremarkable, although it doesn’t appear to tie in to any other mission strategy I’ve heard recently. What was remarkable about this statement was that it came from William Nye. Mr Nye is the secretary general of the Archbishop’s Council and also of the General Synod. In other words he is the church’s Sir Humphrey – its senior civil servant. The question is, why is a civil servant speaking openly about mission strategy? He is not ordained. He is not elected. He is not theologically trained. In his Wikipedia entry he is described as a ‘courtier’. In a previous role he was personal secretary to members of the royal family. So what is his status in making such recommendations about the mission of the church?
When it comes to safeguarding we know that William Nye has a record of imposing his wishes upon the experts in church house. He is line manager to the director of safeguarding, but as far as I know he has no specific expertise in that area. Likewise he has a role in overseeing the work of the church’s communications offices, but he has no specific expertise in communications or media management. It is becoming apparent that William Nye is dominating the work and practices of the archbishops council, and indeed of the archbishops and bishops themselves, even though his ostensible role is to serve them. Who will take William Nye in hand? It would take a brave Archbishop. Do we have one?
Clearly we don’t.
Is it time for the Ecclesiastical Committee of Parliament to take a closer interest in the Church? They did over women bishops, not so long ago, but I suspect Brexit is distracting them from other causes.
Yes, Janet, I agree. In the fantastic phrase of an on line acquaintance, “The Bishop of Manchester was taken outside and shown the stake and the faggots”! Time someone had a word with Sentamu and Justin methinks!
Can I ask – and this is a genuine question – who rules the ruler? If say an Archbishop was found to have severely blotted his copy book (I’m not referring to any current issues) who has the authority to disbar him ?
Essentially complaints about the Archbishops of Canterbury and York are handled by the other one. This almost never happens – and it is made more difficult at the moment by the difficult relationship between the two current Archbishops.
Specifically (at present) the Clergy Disciplinary Measure 2003 (as amended), discussed and analysed at length on the ‘Thinking Anglicans’ website recently.
By Section 10 of the CDM an initial complaint in the case of an archbishop is made by:
(i) a person nominated by the archbishop’s council of his diocese if not less than two-thirds of the members of the council are present at a duly convened meeting of the council and not less than two thirds of the members present and voting pass a resolution to the effect that the proceedings be instituted; or
(ii) any other person who has a proper interest in making the complaint.
As Andrew Graystone says above, the complaint then falls to be dealt with by the other archbishop.
Section 37 makes similar, but slightly more complex, provisions for the suspension of an archbishop.
The CDM is itself currently under review. There appears to be no provision at present to resolve a situation where both archbishops might be the subject of a CDM and thus unable to act. Whether or not Her Majesty as Supreme Governor of the Church could exercise some prerogative power, I am unable to say.
Power and position are rarely aligned in an organisation. We all recall times when unelected “spin doctors” seemed to be running our country. The Church is no different.
Often money is a dominant influence. The parishioner with the big house on the hill seems to have the vicar’s ear.
Unfortunately there are more covert currencies at work even, and dare I say it, especially within our churches. Secrets.
Sometimes the power and influence of an unordained official seems inexplicable, until you realise just how much they know.
What we are seeing is plenty of secrets being uncovered. And not in a good way. I’ll leave the reader to work out whether what we have heard so far of abuse and other scandals, is all there is, or just the tip of the iceberg.
Imagine the power of a person who possesses such knowledge/currency.
Organisational structures often serve to provide a career route for aspiring personnel. For example having multiple levels means you can promote people to make them believe they are progressing. Again the Church is no exception here. Some positions appear to be almost entirely ceremonial, with little or no power. They can even be “patsy” positions, in other words someone to take the flak for all that’s wrong with the place, despite not having originated it themselves.
Meanwhile the real power-holders hide behind the robes of others. Discerning who they are and how they work, is more of a challenge.
I’m sure the Machiavellian stuff does happen. All large organisations are liable to corruption, and we know there is plenty of that. But much of it will simply be the small scale stuff that is the normal currency. Someone the Bishop likes is ordained, even though they’re useless. Someone they don’t care for isn’t, regardless of gifts and graces. There’s the vicar/DDO/Bishop who only puts forward people less able than themselves. Imagine the harm that is doing to the church. There’s the man who doesn’t like women taller than they are. Seriously. There’s loads of ordinary human reasons for bad management. They’re all going to be present. But we should seek to avoid the worst of it, and we really don’t.
Thank you for this powerful piece. I, like many others, have wondered who controls this strange institution. For a long time, it seemed to me that there was an imposing hierarchy, and a well-developed structure of command and control. However, having visited a plethora of parishes I have completely revised that view. Essentially, the structures flatter to deceive; it really is a sea of little trusts, many of them exceedingly fragile and minute. Certain central structures have been developed since 1840 (the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the Church Assembly, the Church Commissioners, the General Synod, the Archbishops’ Council) in order to make this highly fragmented mosaic of largely autonomous trusts cohere into something more efficient, and in this they have had some success, but the more I think about it the more they seem to me to be akin to Gosplan or the Soviet Politburo, littering the enfeebled collective farms and failing factories of the provinces with decrees, targets, five year plans, etc., that make little, if any, difference. If bishops abuse their authority, it might be because what authority they have is confined to a fairly narrow sphere; the paradox is that their responsibilities are wide but their powers are sometimes relatively narrow, and it is this mismatch/asymmetry which might result in poor decision-making.
The prestige of the Church has long depended on ‘front’, the more especially so after its coercive legal powers over the mass of the people were abolished or whittled away over the course of the nineteenth century (a de facto disestablishment). The structures of the Church have not undergone a fundamental alteration (rather, they have been adapted incrementally), because to do so would involve highly contentious bargaining between mutually antipathetic parties within the Church, an d also because it would imperil the ‘front’ the Church is collectively (and perhaps often unwittingly) anxious to preserve.
The signal fact of the contemporary Church is its demographic collapse. This is so pervasive, existential and fundamental, that it looms over everything. It is the incurable cancer that no one seems to want to discuss in front of the patient, even as s/he sickens on the death-bed. Instead we are alerted to, and distracted by, sporadic and tenuous instances of ‘growth’.
Bishops and officials want to evade responsibility because the vitals of the Church are now so rotten, and its demographic strength is so attenuated. The curtain must remain drawn so that the wizard of Oz might maintain his ‘front’, and his imposture. This has become instinctive – a pervasive habit of mind. And so the impassivity to the distress of survivors, and the omerta, are part of a wider pattern of behaviour that seeks to euthanise ‘problems’ discretely without imperilling the preservation of ‘front’.
In truth, I suspect that no one is really in charge. A strong Church, with a healthy income and numbers, would have been a…
Did you exceed your 3000 character limit Froghole? I was just getting into your argument as it was cruelly truncated! Please let us know how it finishes.
The offer to put up 3000+ contributions as guest posts remains. You will understand that verbal loquacity can be a pain. Recently the additional info has been very valuable. One trick is to break up a contribution into two chunks!
The Senior Roman Catholic Cleric in Scotland, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, following serious sexual and clerical abuse tendered his resignation early to Pope Benedict who accepted it but as I understand he still retained his Cardinal’s hat although made public that he would not be joining the Convocation to chose Benedict’s successor.
As a retired Presbyterian still needing help to get to grips with Anglican ways can an Anglican bishop be defrocked of his clerical status and if so by whom?
No Church of England clergy can be defrocked, though they can be prohibited from taking services and preaching. That doesn’t, of course, prevent them from swanning about in a dog collar (or purple shirt) and pretending to be of unimpaired status, if they’re so inclined. Peter Ball did; so did Jonathan Fletcher. The system is supposed to be tighter now but it does depend on the news of a cleric’s prohibition being widely disseminated, and on parish and chaplaincy clergy checking before they invite someone to preach or celebrate.
Janet: That isn’t my understanding of the CDM. The examples you quote are of people who were acting illegally. The subsequent revelation of those facts merely highlights that there isn’t or wasn’t adequate monitoring of them.
Doesn’t ‘unfrock’ have the same meaning as removal from office and prohibition for life?
My point was that it’s difficult to stop people from acting illegally, particularly if their suspension or removal of PTO isn’t widely known. Prohibition lists aren’t widely circulated and even Crockford isn’t always updated. Presumably those clergy who, until very recently, were asking Fletcher to preach weren’t aware his PTO had been removed.
‘Unfrock’ means to laicise, and the C of E no longer has a procedure for doing that. Once a priest, always a priest, no matter what you’ve done.
I gave up my PTO months ago (for health reasons), but my Crockford listing still shows me as having PTO, and I’m still getting letters from the Archbishop’s office addressed to those with PTO.
The system doesn’t seem to work very well.
I was under the impression there are two sorts of “sacking”, but I am probably out of date. One where you can come back with your local Diocesan’s permission, and one where the Diocesan is obliged to consult with the Bishop who heaved you, the Archbishop concerned, and the current Archbishop. You can also be forbidden to use the title reverend and so on. But the church doesn’t follow people round to check!
Roman Catholic Canon law is incredibly complex – ours (Anglican) can be difficult enough, but there is an excellent (US) RC website canonlawmadeeasy.com which deals with all kinds of issues, including clerical legality. Also, the UK website lawandreligionuk.com is a mine of helpful information – mainly, but by no means limited to, Anglican issues.
We discussed a similar question in relation to archbishops only yesterday! Please refer to the above post about the Clergy Disciplinary Measure 2003. The CDM also has similar provisions about bishops.
A complaint against a bishop under the CDM is made to the archbishop of the province in which the bishop serves. There is an interim investigation but the final decision is the archbishop’s. There is an appeal procedure to the Vicar-General’s Court.
This is the range of penalties which can be imposed:
(a) prohibition for life, that is to say prohibition without limit of time from exercising any of the functions of his/her Orders;
(b) limited prohibition, that is to say prohibition for a specific time from exercising any of the functions of his/her Orders;
(c) removal from office, that is to say, removal from any preferment which he/she then holds;
(d) in the case of a minister licensed to serve in a diocese by the bishop thereof, revocation of the licence;
(e) injunction, that is to say, an order to do or to refrain from doing a specified act;
(f) rebuke.
I think that of these, (d) could only apply to a retired bishop.
A rebuke is a rare penalty. One has been imposed recently against a senior cleric who is not a bishop.
In serious cases, removal from office or prohibition (whether for life or limited) – or both – can be imposed.
It is possible for the archbishop to recuse himself on proper grounds, and the Archbishop of York has recently done so in the CDM against the Bishop of Chester. That has accordingly transferred to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Thanks Janet, defrocked was probably the wrong word, status was what I was looking for however the picture is becoming more and more like something out of Alice in Wonderland. If a clergyman renounces his faith he still retains his status in the Church of England? I couldn’t help but look back at “The Bishop’s Gambit” in “Yes Prime Minister”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nrZBtKWSfs
Regardless of our background I’m sure we can all enjoy this.
Oh, it’s brilliant!
Classic humour Leslie, and still scarily relevant!
Roland – Apologies – your input was not live at the time I posted.
There is a clear need for the establishment of an independent Ecclesiastical Ombudsman.
Good idea.
Over a week ago I met with the Diocesan Secretary in a renewed attempt to resolve the issues I have raised about the way I have been treated by senior clergy and the safeguarding department over the last decade or so. I shared with her the insight from the solicitors at IICSA that the likely reason the diocese have behaved so appallingly was because of my previous support for Peter Ball, before the full facts were known. She then hinted that a further reason was a ‘perception’ that I had spoken ill of fellow survivors. I do not believe I have ever been guilty of this, but if there is such a shocking view held of me I have asked to see evidence from the diocese to support it, and wonder why they have not previously reprimanded or corrected me? No evidence has been forthcoming. This smacks yet again of the church seeking to discredit victims. I ask fellow survivors on this forum to express solidarity with my persistent call for justice by seeking directly an apology from Colin Perkins for this latest outrage, prejudicing the DS against me ahead of a meeting that was intended to reassure me and offer an olive branch. Colin.Perkins@Chichester.Anglican.Org
Oh, Nick. Guilty when accused. And not told, not tried, just straight in with the punishment. #metoo. Clergy gossip. So sorry.