The IICSA process has today (Wednesday) produced an interim report. I have not studied the whole document but one section has been reported many times in social media and the press. It concerns the way that many institutions, including presumably the church, put reputational considerations above the needs of victims and survivors. The extract is as follows:
The Inquiry considers that all too often institutions are prioritising the reputation of political leaders or the reputation of their staff, or avoiding legal liability, claims or insurance implications, over the welfare of children and tackling child sexual abuse. IICSA 25th April 2018
This statement, if applied to the church, is a devastating critique of the morality of our national church. It has led me to reflect on the way that institutions can behave in an immoral way. The church may have individual sinners as sexual abusers but the failings of the whole body that fails to deal with the problem in openness and honesty can be just as devastating to victims and survivors.
We are very good at thinking of sin as an individual act. It often is but all too frequently the moral decisions we make are not made in isolation. We all live in social contexts and while we have responsibility for our own actions it is often possible to observe social pressures affecting our decision making. Needless to say, a readiness to blame another person for our wrongdoing does not go down well in a legal context. Yet this tendency to blame another seems to have begun even in the Garden of Eden. ‘The woman you gave me for a companion, she gave me fruit from the tree …..’ Social pressures which come from family, parents or street gang do not constitute a defence in law. Each of us knows that however powerful such pressures are, every person needs to take responsibility for their actions.
If social setting, our family or a gang, create enormous pressure on us to do something wrong, imagine what it must be like where a complete society, such as Nazi Germany, has normalised evil behaviour. It has been shown through social psychological experiments that individuals, even those from stable backgrounds, quickly adapt to their surroundings and behave in whatever way is expected of them. There are two often quoted experiments which demonstrate this. Neither would be possible to repeat today for ethical reasons. One is the experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram. He showed that ordinary people were prepared to administer electric shocks (albeit fake) to strangers simply because someone in a white coat told them to do so. The subjects in the experiment believed that the situation of obeying someone with authority absolved them from having to worry about the high levels of pain they thought was being inflicted. The other famous experiment is the Stamford Prison experiment of 1972. A group of young men were invited to role-play either as prisoners or guards. Within very short time every one of the individuals had completely identified with their respective roles. On the one side, the ‘guards’ had become completely desensitised to the pain and humiliation being experienced by the ‘prisoners’. The prisoners also completely entered into the role and very rapidly developed passivity and inertia in their dealings with the guards. The social reality of the prison became an all-embracing fact affecting all of them and no one was able to step out of their respective roles. The experiment had to be terminated early when the girlfriend of Zimbardo could see the enormous damage that was being perpetrated in the trauma of the experiment.
In both the experiments it has been shown that a normal person in an institutional setting is susceptible to playing the role required of them, behaving in any way that authority may demand. In the Stanford experiment the weak became weaker but those in the powerful role became stronger as well as desensitised to the pain of those below them. Could that experiment be pointing to an interpretation of might be going on in some parts of our church? If playing a role in a fake situation (prison) could have such a dramatic effect on the participants, could not also role play in a real situation (church) have a malign effect on those who take part?
The accusation that is being made against some of the bishops of the Church of England is that they have failed to respond adequately to allegations of abuse. The IICSA Inquiry has called this a ‘prioritising the reputation of political leaders’. I am wondering whether we could see this failing as stemming from such a complete immersion in the institution they serve so that its protection is the highest value they know. Any church leader, whether a bishop or a curate is playing a role within it and thus is beholden to the institution in profound ways. Thus they can never be completely objective about its failings as those on the outside. Loyalty and love for the church as well as the roles they play within it are not going to lead to the most rational and clear understandings when things start to go wrong. Also, as certain clergy ascend the hierarchy their status within the institution becomes more embedded. If the institution is ever weakened, then status and reputation of those within it are diminished.
Zimbardo who set up the Stamford Prison experiment speaks of evil as being always linked with an abuse of power. The abuse of power by an institution is a rather more nuanced affair. When we note that the leaders of an institution will have identities completely defined in that grouping, the power they exercise will naturally have a tendency to be defensive and not always straightforward and transparent. Are we witnessing in the bizarre denials of bishops and other officials attempts to defend the institution that gives them much of their identity and self-importance? I have to say that reports of forgetfulness, documents lost in floods and other prevarications have left me struggling to understand what is now going on in the Church of England, particularly at the highest levels.
Zimbardo and Milgram both demonstrated to generations of social psychology students the power of the group to affect behaviour and personal morality. I leave my reader with the question. Are we witnessing an institution more concerned with its preservation and reputation than with the values it embodies? Is the church able to start witnessing to Christ more than it clutches on to its power and privilege?
I repeated something unpleasant that a cleric had said to me to cathedral canon who was supposed to have pastoral care of me. He replied, “that’s nothing. You should have heard the way my first archdeacon used to speak to me when I was a new curate.” He considered unpleasant behaviour by clergy towards those below them in the pecking order to be normal, and not deserving of any support.
The other thing I’ve noticed is that if a lay person accuses a cleric, the first thing that happens is a phone call to the cleric to check, not always the right response to an abuse victim. On the other hand, if a cleric accuses a lay person, no phone call. It is simply accepted as true, and the boot goes in.
The problem of the flood damaged records bears a little reflection.
I suspect that although with a little thought, those responsible could have figured out a way to put the required statistics together. We are all a bit contemptuous of organisational ‘ box ticking “ and I can ( being charitable) assume that “ it’s only a bit of data that nobody will read” was a subconscious thought.
The problem is that in safeguarding, every bit of data adds to the overall picture. We will only get commitment to assembling all the pieces when the overal culture is changed so that no contribution to a safer church is considered unimportant.
That is why we need to work hard at changing the culture.
Martin, the Archbishop Cranmer blog has convincingly argued that the CDM records could not have been destroyed by floods. Having lived in York, I didn’t see how they could have been. The city has always flooded periodically and it’s well known which areas are at risk. Important records aren’t stored where they might be damaged – unless, of course, someone wants them to be. And as Cranmer points out, there are multiple copies of CDM complaints.
Something is rotten in the province of York.
Lies and corruption. Unfortunately, it has come to be what I expect.
You may, of course be right, however I just want to wonder how important it would have been to bother to “ cover up”. If the figures had been offered how impactful would that have been?
I am in a slightly odd position. Because of contact with people within the victim community, I already had some idea of what the truth was so, it wasn’t , perhaps, important to me to press for an explanation of why the data was missing. ( I make the point against myself)
I am not arguing that there is nothing to investigate it, and poor responses clearly aggravate the situation and undermine trust. I am sure asking questions is right and proper.
However the question “ Is it conspiracy or “cock up”? is something we need to consider.
I found this pretty convincing. http://archbishopcranmer.com/sentamu-clergy-discipline-commission/
Wow. That should be dynamite. Why hasn’t an accusation like that been all over the news?
Sadly, it has come to be what many of us expect.
Regarding accusations against laity and clergy, there seems to be no consistency. Except, perhaps, that the matter is dealt with in the way that suits the most powerful person concerned, or who gets involved.
Sadly, I have experienced consistency! 🙂 I’ve been punished because of clergy gossip many times. And what powerful people do tends not to be questioned. But you’re probably right, inasmuch as it’s not officially laid down, so it will vary!
After reading the Archbishop Cranmer article I realised that Moira Astin of the CDM commission (who also co-authored guidelines for the professional conduct of clergy) tipped up promoted to Archdeacon in my diocese. When so much in the church relies on ‘grace and favour’ of Bishops for job enhancement it is hard not to be suspicious of such action. ‘Grace and favour’ allows the candidate to get the job on a nod and a wink and with that promotion comes better housing and better salary thus embedding the person further into the system and less likely to question the ethics.
There is such vast wealth in each diocese that Diocesan Secretaries, who are often from secular, corporate backgrounds run them in the same way as a CEO of a company. It is not the human element that becomes the focus but the wealth and success of the company. This CEO position naturally comes with enormous wage packets £80 000+ in my area, and so loyalty is ensured and personal integrity lost.
None of these people live next door to me on the council estate or earn just over the minimum wage but if they did loyalty and commitment to the company may be decidedly less and real change could happen because no other agenda exists apart from doing the best job they can.
You are right about grace & favour – or, in some cases, lack of grace and disfavour. Several years ago York Diocese advertised a job which was half time parish, half time training officer. I applied, was shortlisted and called to interview in York, with the request that I prepare a 10-minute presentation on clergy in-service training. I was interviewed by a panel of four and questioned specifically about the job which had been advertised.
However, no mention was made of the parish in Middlesbrough, and no arrangements made for visiting it. As the interview concluded I asked about this and was told that they’d decided to be honest with me – the job was no longer on offer. The Archbishop had changed his mind. There would be an unspecified position on the training team at some point, but not the one I had applied and been interviewed for. Two of the panel members apologised to me; they had only been told this just before the interview started and after their questions had been prepared. The other two were quite blasé about it.
My expenses for travel and presentation materials for that interview had been £60, and two members of the panel had also travelled some distance. I had spent probably 4 working days on the whole thing, and those four had also expended considerable time and energy. So, in terms of finance and staff time, it was a very expensive charade. Four professional clergy had been implicated in a lie, and I had been to considerable trouble and stress.
For what?
On Stephen’s original post, a clergy friend, I do have them!, told me about someone he was a curate at the same time as. His mate was older and had other life experience, so three years after being curates together, he was offered an incumbency, and shortly after that, became Rural Dean, too. They lost touch a bit, but five or six years on bumped into each other and went for coffee. His friend had resigned a couple of years later. Resigned his ministry, no longer went to church. We’re not spreading the word, he said. It’s nonsense. He had got close enough to the corrupt centres of power to see the truth, and couldn’t square it with his conscience. Sadly of course, these are the clergy we actually need.
Martin Sewell: you do every victim of Church of England ‘connected’ child sexual abuse grave discourtesy by printing your injudicious question on this forum.
Stephen Parsons states unequivocally his support for all victims of Church abuse. Therefore, it behoves us all – as visitors to his blog – to respond to the circumstances of each victim – named or anonymised – with similar, sensitive pastoral care.
I urge that you watch – in full – the video recordings of every session of the Anglican Hearing. The written transcriptions do not show the full horror of how the perpetrators were protected and victims further traumatised.
Note: one senior male cleric admitted to the Anglican Hearing that he’d ‘inherit[ed] a paedophile ring’.
Reminder: the Anglican strand of the CSA Inquiry is only dealing with *some perpetrators within *one Church of England diocese: Chichester.
The scale and extent of Church of England child sexual abuse – over time and geographically across dioceses – is beyond comprehension. It cannot, however, be casually dismissed as either ‘cock-up’ or ‘conspiracy theory’.
Respectfully, I would ask you to remember that many of these despicable acts against children have been judged as crimes in courts of law. The CSA Inquiry heard that many allegations did not go to trial because complainants were disbelieved or discredited whilst perpetrators were ‘protected’ on account of their ‘status’.
There should be no place in Christ’s Church for perpetrators of child abuse, their protectors or their apologists.
Please consider revising your problematic post.