Throughout this year 2018, the Church of England has been facing up to the horrors of past failures in the area of safeguarding. Under the close examination of the Independent Inquiry (IICSA), set up by the Conservative Government of Britain, Catholics and Anglicans have been forced to listen to the accounts of their terrible shortcomings in the realm of child protection. We have read the written findings of the Inquiry in respect of the Catholic institutions of Downside and Ampleforth. Here concern for the welfare and safety of children took second place to the preservation of the monastic establishments in charge of these schools. In due course, we will be reading written reports about what the Inquiry thinks about the conduct of the Church of England in respect of the Diocese of Chichester and the way it handled the serious offending of Bishop Peter Ball. No doubt the incredulous tone of the questioning lawyers on the Inquiry will be translated into a serious critique of church functioning at every level. Relatively few people listened to the evidence of the Chichester and Bishop Peter hearings as they were under way. Many more, however, will be exposed to the full sordid details of these cases when the written reports appear in the months ahead.
While the IICSA process has been going on in England, something similar has been completed on the other side of the world in Australia. The Royal Commission on Child Abuse in Australia has come to an end after several years of hearings and work. It has produced a massive amount of paper, with reports criticising many institutions including the Catholic and the Anglican churches. In all, the Commission has identified 16,000 child victims. It has proposed that the organisations named in the abuse reports should contribute to a massive national fund of £2.2 billion pounds to offer redress to surviving victims. This allows each identified victim to receive up to £84,000. This will allow them to receive counselling and provide other forms of care for their needs. All the Churches identified as complicit are required to provide substantial, even crippling, contributions from their funds. They see their contribution as of vital importance to indicate that they are serious in their expressions of regret for what has taken place in the past.
This cataclysmic effect on the assets of Australian Anglican Church can be felt by looking at one small diocese, the Diocese of Tasmania. My interest in this diocese is not just because of the terrible financial burden with which they have to cope, but in the way that the Bishop and his people seem to realise the importance of getting things right with the past even though much of their assets of buildings and money will be wiped out at a stroke. A diocese with 43 church buildings is going to have to raise £8 million as its contribution to the national fund. Richard Condie, the Bishop, has written sensitively and movingly to his people about the issues that they face. It requires his diocese to sell almost half their buildings and land, including church buildings and rectories. He knows that many church people will protest at the decision of the Synod to do this. People are asking him: why should the church today have to suffer because of the sins of other people in the past? His answer is a challenging one. He says that the sacrifice that has to be made is ‘the way of the cross’. He goes on: ‘The Lord Jesus suffered for the sins of the whole world, including mine and yours, so that we could find forgiveness and restoration. In a small way our sacrifice now models his sacrifice for us. It is a profoundly Christian thing to do’.
I leave my reader to imagine the pressure on a English Bishop and a Diocesan Synod if there was a proposal to sell off half the diocesan assets to put right the abusive behaviour of church people in the past. The fact that Bishop Condie has so far prevailed in his planned proposals suggests that in Australia at any rate, Anglican Christians are taking the issue of past abuses very seriously indeed. The sentiments of understanding towards survivors also confirms this impression. The Bishop talks of ‘reaching out to survivors of sexual abuse who have been hurt in our churches in this way. Many survivors have lifelong scars including psychological distress, depression and anxiety. Many have failed marriages and have found it hard to keep meaningful employment because of their trauma. The stories are truly heartbreaking’. The money that is required for redress payments ‘go some way to alleviating the monetary costs of the abuse in survivors’ lives. But more than that, redress gives clear acknowledgement from us, that the abuse happened and provides a means for ongoing support through counselling. I beg you when counting the cost of redress in your parish, to remember his people. They are our primary concern.’
In thinking about the extraordinary events in the Australian churches that are unfolding this summer, as they come to terms with the aftermath of the Royal Commission, we should imagine ourselves two years ahead. By 2020 our Inquiry will have delivered its written reports and the full horror of sexual abuse in the churches (and elsewhere) will be revealed. In facing this future crisis, the churches will need decisive leadership and a readiness to make some substantial material sacrifices, even if not on the scale of the Diocese of Tasmania. All our bishops will need to be able to say to people that it will cost a great deal to put right the evils of the past. The same leadership will need to acknowledge the suffering of survivors and how they need compassion and help, not shunning and rejection. The Church in Australia, as expressed by the words of Bishop Condie, recognizes that complete honesty and acceptance of the evils of the past is the way that they can move into the future. Denial, cover-up and dishonesty on the part of senior church people, who believe that they are protecting the institution, is not a way forward. As I have said before, elaborate schemes for serving children in a church setting will be of limited value if all the clergy are tainted with the label of paedophiles. The Church in England must get on board with this new word – redress. That way we can show that we do understand the past and, rather than cover it up, we want to make a new beginning.
The short message is that the Anglican Church in Australia and its leaders seem to ‘get it’. Showing proper empathy for survivors is the first stage in helping the church face up to and overcome the problems of the past. Just as we do not yet know the full impact of Brexit on our national life, so the Church of England has not yet calculated how damaging and demoralising the frequent stories of child abuse are to its work and mission. In this post I want to challenge our bishops to look hard at the Australian experience and be ready to provide the kind of leadership that we will need if we are to survive waves of reputational damage that are still to emerge. It will cost a great deal of money. Such sacrifices today, by acknowledging the appalling wrongs of the past make possible a better future.
This post opens up some very pertinent issues.
I was struck that the question “why should the church today have to suffer because of the sins of other people in the past?” is even being asked, rather than “what can we be doing to meet the needs of those who have been harmed?”. It seems to reveal the lack of empathy that many lay members of the Anglican church in Australia presumably have for victims/survivors, but I don’t suppose the situation is much different in the UK.
Given the refusal only last December of a Diocesan Bishop to meet me so I could explain the effect that his continued cover-up was having on my family, there’s clearly some way to go before there is empathy for victims/survivors by the senior leadership in this country. It’s good to hear that Richard Condie is leading the way in Australia.
Perhaps this is also the time to raise my concern more widely that this Bishop was withholding documents that should have been passed on to another diocese and that, therefore, I don’t believe his references can be trusted. I think this compromises safeguarding in the whole church.
Hmm …. I’m in two minds about this post, Stephen. My first response is complete agreement. My second was, watch out Lib-Dems you may be wiped out. And of course they are not the only political party with skeletons of abuse in cupboards. Charities have recently felt the cold blast coming from their employees bad behaviour.
spreading this principle out, will the complete destruction of a body, which total financial collapse can mean, be the right way forward? I welcome other contributions on this.
Erin Brockovich springs to mind. She lead a massive and successful class-action suit against the environmental toxicity of a large chemical company.
We’ve heard much in these posts about the lawyers acting for the Anglican Church, but not so much from the lawyers acting for the classes of victims of abuse, as a class. As the full picture of abuse emerges in the next couple of years, I would be surprised if we didn’t see increasingly large class-action law suits against the spiritual and psychological toxic legacy of the Church.
This, in actuality or threat, brings pressure from the other side. It will no longer be possible to bury our church heads in the sand, or try to wriggle out of responsibility for putting past wrongs right. Choosing whether to pay, won’t be an option. The question will be how much, and when.
I’m surprised and impressed by the Australian response. But in essence, if my argument is correct, they had no choice. And neither does the C of E.
I’ve never been interested in revenge or retribution. But redress, recompense and restitution, yes. Would anyone buy a grade 1 listed thousand year old liability, though? And for enough money to deal with what has to be done? I’d like to a great deal of effort put into protection and prevention. It means far fewer victims in the future, but it is always the hardest thing. Even recompensing someone like me would cost hundreds of thousands. Putting me to where I would be if they hadn’t bullied me. It changes the course of your life. But it also changes you. What might have been the happiest and most productive twenty years of my life became totally wretched. How do you make restitution for that? But how in a million years would you ever fittingly recompense Matt for what they did/are doing to him?
Money. A little goes a long way to those who don’t have much. It can’t rebuild a lost life of course, but it can provide some necessities to survive at least. Like psychotherapy. Which is expensive and hard to find.
A monetary charge is a great incentive to change behaviours. Fear of liability has driven much of the evasion of victims we’ve seen in recent years.
It’s tempting to think money is the only thing “they” truly understand.
The Church has many grade 1 assets, including its shares in Amazon, I gather. But this is not necessarily the place to debate investment ethics.
Wealth insulates. Many “newer” churches have no legacy property at all, but must live on their wits, with transparency and integrity. They rent.
By coincidence there is a Grade I listed Anglican Church down the road. I know it has struggled to meet rising maintenance costs. They rent their space to a Methodist congregation. This closed its 1960s edifice and sold the plot for development to flats and social housing.
There are options to liberate resources from ancient monuments. None ideal perhaps but needs must.
It’s time to pare away the insulation, and do the right thing.
I don’t disagree. Stephen’s post has left me a little open mouthed. I do rather agree with the sentiment that money talks louder to the perpetrators and to the bystanders than anything else. It says, “We are taking this seriously” , which is all good. I was throwing out questions because I can’t imagine the answers. I’m not expecting that the church would ever even consider recompensing me. It won’t. But if you look at the potential financial cost of trying to do so, and granted much, much more for those physically or sexually abused, well, as I say, I don’t know the answers. You’re right about imaginative ways of liberating money, of course. But there’s theoretically millions tied up in “plant”, and you’d never be able to realise more than a fraction.
As this post is about money – substantial support for therapy for victims – I want to add another thought. In the past it used to be the Church that people turned to for support when they had been abused and ill-treated by the world around, now the table is turning in that people turn to the world outside for therapeutic help and healing after clerical abuse.
As money is flowing in that direction we ought to ask of the therapeutic community – “where are your safeguarding procedures and have they proved to be examples for the Church?” Recently the Victoria Derbyshire programme on the BBC highlighted concerns that perhaps they are not. See https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-41831284
As Paul said “there are none righteous” and therapy should not slip off the tongue as a pure and spotless avenue for the hurting. “Follow the money” is as important there as in other places
PS Not a sister site to Stephen’s Survivingchurch.org but survivingtherapistabuse.com looks at the other side.
With half the world living in abject poverty whenever I read articles about compensation I think, ‘First World problems.’ Imagine the good that could be done if the church was fined for allowing abuse to happen rather than ‘shelling out’ to individuals. If that money went into life changing community projects, at home and abroad, surely that would be true recompense for anyone.
I admit I have never really understood the sense of entitlement of the institutional abuse survivor, most abuse is familial and lives also completely wrecked but no opportunity or expectation for financial compensation. Life is hard for many people not just abuse survivors but we are also fortunate enough to live in a country with a welfare state system and NHS so ‘hard’ becomes very relative. Life is what we make it not how we let others define it. Survivors stories can be remarkable and empowering or they can be sad but what is truly heartbreaking is turning on the news and watching fat bellied babies die in the arms of their mothers for lack of clean water, food and medicine and all completely preventable with money.
Well, you’re right in a way. But if you need counselling and can’t afford it? Or are now out of work like Matt? From my point of view, I do feel robbed. If the church is obliged to pay back what they stole, there’s less incentive to repeat it, and there is incentive to put it right so it doesn’t happen again. It shouldn’t be either/or. The Church should behave decently, and that means to its clergy, it’s members, and to those who are not its members.
Recovery following abuse is dependent upon establishing at least one trustworthy relationship and for some people – and it is totally beyond their control – this is only possible in the form of a professional therapeutic relationship, which costs money.
I don’t deny that many people have hard lives and that much abuse is familial but I think it is important to recognise that the ability to recover isn’t necessarily something a person can just do by themselves – often it is a matter of luck.
Having lived with a complex form of PTSD for 5 years in the 1990s with no treatment, my breakthrough came when I saw a psychiatrist speaking on television and I spoke to my GP the next day to request a referral to her. It was only this “lucky break” which set me on the path to recovery. I can well understand how people in similar circumstances who didn’t have a lucky break could self-harm and take their own lives.
Indeed.
I’m very concerned to see a tweet sent by Andy Morse, Iwerne victim/survivor, a couple of hours ago. Any suggestions for how we can support him?
Where is he? Is there someone near?
I’ve no idea, EA, but being detained against his will is likely to be experienced as another form of abuse.
Being detained against your will is an abuse of human rights and is recognised as being so and can only be done with the correct medical and police presence for mental health reasons that fit the criteria. I think it is also really important to remember that sometimes it is the person’s family that has to set this dreadful process in action in order to protect their loved one so Andy should only receive non-judgemental messages about what has happened, unless the full story is known.
If Andy knows people care deeply what happens to him then that is helpful and because he lives within the same care trust area as me I have sent his tweet to a couple of people who may be able to deliver this message in a professional capacity if he is in the hospital I would expect him to be in.
Why does the church not bloody listen, I knew that with Smyth dropping dead survivors would be walking a tightrope between choosing life or death but no they don’t bloody listen to people like me just their bloody solicitors who should slither back to where they came from.
Thank you, Trish, for trying to get through a message of support to him. I think it’s really important that he knows there are people “out there” who care about him and who have some understanding of how it feels to be abused and blanked by the church.
Well done, Trish. We’ll all pray for him.
Did realise that would be an unpopular comment but as an abuse survivor felt I had a right to say it. It wasn’t meant to be particularly heartless just blunt. This blog talks a lot about ‘othering’ but most of us do that to the third world all the time and as the wealth of the church has been massively built on the back of the slave trade that is unacceptable.
I work predominantly with people aged over 80, the stories of abuse are horrific, both institutional and familial, but with no compensation, or even welfare or an NHS in the early years I cannot think of one that did not go on to have a productive, if not always very happy life. Their attitude is ‘oh stop moaning and get on with it.’ Yet there are often articles from survivors moaning about the x thousand of pounds they received in compensation.
I cannot believe that either of you, JayKay or Atthena, if given the choice between having the money for yourself or making sure it went to improve the lives of those that have absolutely nothing, would chose you. There are other far more meaningful ways of compensating people other than by directly paying them money, ways that respect Christian and human ethics. Many institutions are fined (IICSA for one) and absolutely do accept it as a punishment but the penalty money has to go to the right place to be compensation for survivors.
Do appreciate though that, as quite often, I am a lone and unpopular voice on this one 🙂
No, do carry on. 😀 I do think that it might be a false dichotomy, though. Shouldn’t the church at least WANT to sort out its damaged relationships with its victims? That shouldn’t exclude helping those who genuinely have very little.
I am not sure the church in Australia WANTED to sort out damaged relationships they were told to. They could have done this at any point without being told to. Bishop Condie’s words seem nice but it is not for us on this side of the world to say if they are actually meaningful. Welby’s tearful IICSA statement was nice but ended up as little more than propaganda.
I appreciate I am probably the only one that thinks like this but 2.2 billion pounds could alleviate so much suffering, far more than the lives of 16,000 people, whole communities supplied with fresh water, sanitation, vaccinations, mosquito nets, livestock. It breaks my heart just thinking about how much good such a vast sum could do. Of course survivors have suffered, in the same way that familial ones have who will never get any compensation, but £84,000 in this country would quickly go with little to show for it. In my diocese the annual wage of the diocesan secretary is more than that!
As a survivor if I knew that money had gone to actually save the lives of whole communities I would certainly not think my suffering had gone unrecognized.
There has been a bit of questioning about Bishop Condie’s proposed sale of Tasmanian church assets. The projected revenue is AUD$20 million, of which only a quarter is intended for contribution to the federal government redress scheme. The remainder will be seed funding for church planting, ostensibly in areas of the diocese where there is little or no church presence. In some cases this will have been brought about by the local parish being liberated from its buildings…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-14/anglican-church-sale-fight/10114614
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-08-27/anglican-church-sales-bring-hundreds-out-in-protest/10167702
https://www.realcommercial.com.au/news/first-church-falls-in-tasmanias-big-anglican-selloff
Thank you Ulverstone for putting right some of the facts. I think what struck me more than the financial issues was the tone of the Bishop’s words. He is obviously deeply committed to seeing that the victims flourish and find justice. He is also recognising that the church has to make sacrifices to bring this about. This is in marked to many of our bishops in Britain which are trying every trick in the book in an apparent attempt to deflect the long-standing complaint against the church by survivors.
Thankyou Stephen, yes I recognise what you’re seeking to highlight. My point is that the target for capitalisation of churches in Tasmania puts Bishop Condie’s words into a perspective that complicates what you’re saying in some fundamental ways. The bishop is right to say that it’s a question of deep justice and the flourishing of survivors, and that this demands deep changes. The problem is that the financial target-setting is pretty clearly geared to church planting rather than financial redress schemes.
It’s perhaps worth mentioning that Bishop Condie is strongly aligned with GAFCON. This might put the finance raising into a yet wider perspective. He’s apparently considered a strong candidate the next time Sydney has to elect an Archbishop. All of this places him at a significant distance from British bishops in terms of personal attitudes on a variety of issues. Perhaps this is why he is able to speak with conviction about the needs of victims.
Thank you Ulverstone. The bit about GAFCON does put the comments in a new light. Yet, as you will recognise, we in the UK long to hear words from bishops that show that they really understand the trauma of victims and the need for a proper process of redress. It is hard to capture the nuances of your situation from so far away but I just found that on the surface at any rate these words said something important for the UK.
Trish, I think you have mad some good points and given us a salutary reminder.
However, I wouldn’t go with the solution you suggest, because I don’t think it would bring healing to survivors. True, many of us are not eligible for compensation for our childhood abuse. But I don’t see how victims of institutional abuse should be deprived of compensation because we can’t have it. I know that isn’t doing justice to your argument, but bear with me. If the Church were to announce that as an acknowledgement of the abuse it had inflicted on children it was going to donate a massive amount of money to people in other countries – that would not be justice for victims here. It would feel like another institutional abuse – and it would be. It would be an abuse of power; the institution once again saying these people (survivors) don’t really matter, that their needs don’t count. If the Church is going to take massive amounts of money to give to deprived people abroad, it ought to be out of other expenditure. Or selling some of its properties in Soho, for example.
Secondly, I too have known people who have carried the pain of abuse into their eighties and nineties. Some have never functioned well because of it. Some have become so twisted they have abused others – something that good therapy might have prevented. – But by definition, these are the ones who have actually survived. Others have killed themselves, or drunk themselves to death, or died of drug overdoses. If victims of Church abuse are given the money for therapy or private psychiatric treatment, we may avoid these tragic outcomes.
So, thanks for making us think – but in my view the Church does need to compensate its victims. And I wish them well.
Thanks Janet, last attempt at explaining what I mean and then to everyone’s relief I will shut up! Restorative justice does not always, or perhaps even often come through handing people a load of cash. I know that one survivor who gave evidence at IICSA received a huge pay out from the church yet to hear the person’s testimony was to realize that essentially it had not improved the quality of their life. Apart from anything else, though we are all being very prim and proper and saying people would use it for therapy, sod that, if someone had handed me a load of cash a few years ago I would have spent it on drink and drugs and blown my brains out within six months. Many survivors would identify with that.
It is lazy thinking to see restorative justice only in financial terms which is why I keep highlighting the difference between familial and institutional. Familial have no opportunity for compensation so they get creative and in my opinion are none the poorer for it. My restorative justice for familial abuse is, through a charity, visiting child offenders in prison and telling them what its like to be abused, no amount of money would have given me what that has done.
Of course no one wants any survivor to struggle but I think they are done a huge dis-service if through laziness, lack of engagement and assuming they are all out for money, creative and meaningful ways of restorative justice are not thought through WITH them.
These are very good points. Your final point nails it. You have to engage with the survivors, not do things TO them.
Trish, please don’t shut up, I think this is a useful conversation.
I really admire you for doing restorative justice work in prisons, that’s fantastic. I’ll bet you’ve learned a lot as well as giving a lot. Do you feel able to say more about it?
I’m a survivor of both familial abuse as a child and Church abuse as an adult. In my experience there are some features of the two which are different. For one thing, when someone is abused as a child by an adult, the time comes when that adult is no longer around. We move away, contact is severed, the person dies…a number of things can happen to remove us from their immediate power. We still need to free ourselves from the power they have over our minds and psyches, of course – which is why therapy is usually necessary. It’s a pity there isn’t some kind of State scheme for redress, or effective therapy offered on the NHS. I’m sure it would be cost-effective; research has shown that abuse victims tend to be high users of the NHS, and therapy can reduce their need for health services. Additionally, there’s the benefit to society of someone being able to function fully, and reducing the possibility of winding up in the prison system. (I’ve read that a majority of women in the prison system are survivors. I don’t know what the figures are for men.)
Our abuser’s ability to abuse others is also finite and life-limited, even if they never acknowledge their wrongdoing or are never brought to justice. That’s not true of the Church as an abuser; its capacity to go on abusing is almost infinite – unless it’s brought to realise how wrong that abuse is. And at present, the only thing that seems likely to bring that home to our leaders is the financial penalty of having to compensate its victims. That’s what has happened with other Churches and in other countries.
As a matter of fact, I and some other victims I know would like to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission like that which happened in South Africa. That would entail our leaders having to listen what abuse, and their failure to deal with it, has done to victims. The problem is, the Church is so entrenched a part of the Establishment that I can’t think who could possibly lead such a Commission. It would have to be someone from another country, I think. And in any case the Church will never agree to such a Commission until they are made desperate. Which takes us back to the money question. It’s the only thing that seems to matter to them, sadly.
I concur. Don’t stop disagreeing with us, Trish! Good points. And good points Janet, too. The number of abusers is limited. But I came to the conclusion some years ago that the “good men who do nothing” are the real problem. I liked them even less than the bullies. They have sat down and decided to do nothing to help you, “with both hands” as my mother says! There is never going to be a shortage of potential bullies. There needs to be a proper system to support their victims. That there isn’t, is a great institutional sin. Sex abuse is different, of course. But the support system would be the same. The prevention mechanisms are the same. And the damage done to self esteem is similar. And the sort of bullying that involves telling lies about you changes your life.
I do think you both say very sensible things. My experience is the same as yours Janet, familial abuse as a child and clergy abuse as an adult and I think there are a number of differences in how I have been able to process the consequences of both. As you rightly say Janet our relationship with a family abuser is time limited and yet when they die they are still there. I actually missed my abuser controlling me because I didn’t know how to think for myself yet at the same time I was frightened he wasn’t really dead and would come back to control me. This was so bad I got arrested for trying to dig him up to make sure he was really dead. He was my entire life good or bad so the loss of that was actually very hard even when everyone else was telling me it was good. However as Athena says in these situations there is often another adult that does know what’s going on but does not act due to fear, denial or whatever. I actively made the decision to care for this person when she became terminally ill. It was not easy but I have always thought that if the cycle of abuse, which is a family pattern, is to end it must end with me.
Clergy abuse allows for none of those dynamics because essentially the victim and abuser don’t know each other. There is no power to make decisions, as I did to care for someone, because those decisions aren’t ours to make. We are completely disempowered so I do feel really sad for those that suffered clergy abuse as a child because they don’t have the opportunities I had, to make peace in some way with their abuser.
Restorative justice in prisons was started by a local university who was doing a lot of research into whether this would make a difference to people re-offending. It took so much courage from everyone that we had that immediate connection of ‘well this is really awkward,’ but these people have given me so much by their vulnerability, pain and humanity. A lot of abusers are racked with pain and guilt and I wonder how much the church stops them expressing that in favour of protecting the institution.
I do know, Janet that the money is what talks, but that is so sad because of course it should be available for therapy, courses, education etc but survivors should be able to think what might help them, and that will be rich and varied, and enabled to achieve that not just chucked some money and told to go away.
Therapy is important and I never underestimate that or spend a day when I am not truly grateful for the person who has supported me over so many years so to highlight that lack of provision I think a Commission would be a very good idea but the church HAS to be brave and make itself vulnerable, like the people in prison, because that gives us all the opportunity to be nice to each other, and though I do come across as a right grumpy old cow I do much prefer that.
PS. just to make it clear I go into an open prison where the crimes are felt to be less serious and the offenders able to be rehabilitated with the right support. I do not go into high grade prisons where offenders are ruthless and persistent and whom I am sure would scare me and I would not feel kindly towards. There are survivors that do but they are highly trained and mentally very stable.
Even so, I think there are few survivors who could do what you do. So well done.
Agreed. You have an amazing ministry and testimony. Glad you’re here!