On the Radio 4 Sunday programme broadcast yesterday, there was an interesting exchange on the topic of the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM). In recent weeks and months, this issue has never been far away from a mention on this blog as the CDM is constantly being discussed in the Church press. During July, two important developments took place connected with the Measure. In the first place, the House of Bishops, meeting on the 8th July, declared themselves committed unanimously to ‘working towards replacing the Measure and to making interim procedural changes to ensure the current system is more workable until new legislation is enforced’.
The second CDM news to appear this month is the publishing of an extensive piece of research overseen by Dr Sarah Horsman of the Sheldon Trust based near Exeter. The Sheldon Trust is a charity working with clergy who have been involved in disciplinary situations where they are going through times of stress and breakdown. The Trust had commissioned its own research on the actual working of the CDM in the Church and the experience of clergy facing its procedures. The survey approached every English clergyman (I believe), working or retired and sought their views of the Measure. I received the questionnaire but did not return it, having left my English parish three years before the CDM came into force in 2006. The Sheldon survey received a high rate of return (about 33%) and the details of 291 clergy facing 351 CDMs were available for study. A significant amount of extra comment from those surveyed was generated. In all, 306 people contributed 270,000 words about their experience of the Measure. It is important to note that the CDM was only connected in 25% of cases with safeguarding allegations. One example highlighted in the Church Times concerned a clergyman who had missed taking a funeral due to illness. That possible scenario is one that haunts the imaginations of most clergy. A good proportion (66%) of the cases came back with a not guilty verdict but damage had been done to those accused, particularly by the length of time that the process had taken. A third of cases had taken more than six months to resolve. The actual interview can heard through this link. https://www.sheldonhub.org/usercontent/sitecontentuploads/260/BE714015EBC9A10A6EE9FB071D395502/sunday%20extract.mp3
The Radio 4 interview invited Dr Sarah Horsman and Bishop Tim Thornton to react to both these recent developments in the reform and replacement of CDM. Much of Dr Horsman’s contribution was concerned with her report from Sheldon and the meticulous analysis of the survey data by the two academics from Aston University. The most striking and memorable part of the report were not the opinions (mostly negative) of the CDM process but the accounts of the appalling stress involved in having any part in it. No fewer than 40% of those clergy investigated had contemplated suicide and the incidence of Post-Traumatic stress was high. Three individuals had actually attempted suicide. High on the agenda was the failure of the Church to provide adequate support, either legal, pastoral or financial. Suspension from duty, particularly among those found not-guilty had been a heavy burden to carry. Clearly the process had destroyed, for many, the feeling that they would ever be able to trust the senior members of the clergy who had set the CDM process in motion. The six page summary can be found here. https://www.sheldon.uk.com/UserContent/doc/1588/emerging%20research%20findings%20on%20cdm.pdf
Dr Sarah Horsman’s testimony over the fate of accused clergy was fairly harrowing in its impact. Any clergyman listening would instinctively have empathised with the accounts of appalling threats to clergy when career, housing, family relationships and sanity itself are placed in jeopardy. The Radio 4 interviewer was also clearly shocked by Dr Horsman’s descriptions. He seemed to be inviting Tim Thornton, the Bishop at Lambeth to share in the sense of outrage at the sheer weight and volume of pain and suffering we had heard from Dr Horsman. What might the interviewer and a fair minded listener have expected from a senior official who was presiding over a system appearing to be in total meltdown and described as a ‘mess’?. Bishop Thornton admitted that things were not working well and that the Church was moving towards replacement of CDM. Somehow one wanted to hear much more than that. We all, including the interviewer, wanted to hear some words of real compassion and empathy. Bishop Thornton was prepared to concede that some individual cases had been conducted badly but he was not prepared to concede that the structure itself was, and had been for some time, in a state of near collapse. It also did not appear to worry the Bishop that the CDM process was also doing a great deal to undermine good relationships between bishops and their clergy. A question that was not asked was why the Measure had been allowed to carry on so long when there were so obviously numerous examples of failures of process over its 14 year history.
There were two other jarring notes in the Bishop Thornton interview. In the first place he referred to Dr Horsman as Sarah. That might have been more appropriate if they had been discussing together and a degree of informality established. The interviews were both recorded independently. In view of the fact that Dr Horsman is a respected academic who is speaking prophetically to the Church, the use of the Christian name by the Bishop came over as somewhat condescending and belittling. In this situation the Bishop should have regarded himself as being the one having something to learn. In the second place when talking about the development of a replacement to the CDM, Bishop Thornton referred to a mysterious ‘we’ who were going to do the work and bring forward the new proposals. In the view of the shameful mess that CDM is in at present, it would be reassuring to think that Bishop Thornton and those who work with him at Lambeth Palace and Church House had begun to move away from the assumption that all the skills necessary for reform were to be found in-house. Is one really expected to have confidence in the message ‘Trust me, I am a bishop’. Are the skills of ‘we’ sufficient, when the old model is failing so lamentably? I am sure that the independent body or individual who has provided the money for the Sheldon research is hoping some of the wisdom expressed in those 306 witness statements would find their way into the new fit for purpose CDM.
In recent weeks, this blog has found itself highly critical of these two areas of Church legislation, the interrelated processes around Core Groups and CDM. Many of the problems around these two pieces of legislative writing seem to result from the fierce desire of the Church to retain total control of the processes. One problem with the Church having so much control of these legal structures is that the system easily becomes riven with conflicts of interest. There are relatively few lawyers competent to work in Church legal cases, so the ones that exist will be constantly encountering each other, being consulted over the same cases. Scrutiny from an ombudsman, working independently, is something that might have alleviated many of the CDM and Core Group problems that we have seen recently. The Church needs to have a discipline process for the clergy, but we need some radical new thinking to get this right for the future. Bishop Thornton has indicated that the House of Bishops is ready to discard the current CDM . Let us hope for the sake of the whole Church that they get this right. The precedents that have been set suggest that there is still too much secrecy in the system. This is alongside a fierce clinging on to power and privilege by a small group within our national Church. This lack of openness and desire for control and power by a few do not suggest that this process will be straightforward. General Synod needs to be ready to scrutinise and question future legislation carefully. The Sheldon Trust has shown us how refreshing it is when an independent body shines a light of constructive criticism on a sclerotic structure that seems to describe our national church at present.
Thank you very much for this detailed research. Discipline has been a perennial problem for the Church because until recently the model was that the parson would be king in his own parish and would enjoy a life tenure; moral hazard was therefore likely.
Until 1840 clergy would be presented at the archdeacons’ or consistory courts, which had flawed procedures. The process was expensive and cumbersome; deprivation was practically unheard of and was much more likely to occur because of political contumacy (e.g., the non-jurors), and the courts would require the delinquent parson to perform an act of penance or to be suspended from exercising ministry for a period. Sexual wrongdoing was quite rare, but non-attendance at services was a problem, especially where curates were not employed or were inadequate (see, for example, W. M. Jacob, ‘Supervising the Pastors: Supervision and Discipline of the Clergy in Norfolk in the Eighteenth Century’ in the Dutch Review of Church History, v. 83 (2003) 296-308 and his ‘Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1840’ (2007) and Frances Knight ‘Ministering to the Ministers: The Discipline of Recalcitrant Clergy in the Diocese of Lincoln, 1830-1845’ in ‘The Ministry: Clerical and Lay’ Studies in Church History 26 (1989)).
The Church Discipline Act 1840 changed all this by giving bishops much more power and allowing archdeacons and rural deans to conduct local investigations, but the machinery remained problematic; for Arthur Burns it was a flop (‘The Diocesan Revival in the Church of England, c. 1800-1870’ (1999), 162-91), and it was replaced by the Clergy Discipline Act 1892, which covered treason or felony, or anything resulting in a sentence of imprisonment; also bastardy, divorce or adultery, or being the subject or a separation order under the Matrimonial Causes Act of 1878. Ritualism was covered by Tait’s infamous Public Worship Regulation Act 1874. “Conduct unbecoming the character of a clerk in Holy Orders” and “serious, persistent or continuous neglect of duty” were added in the Incumbents (Discipline) Measure 1947.
The balance of power has therefore shifted, gradually and often imperceptibly, from incumbent to bishop. However, it has also coincided with the progressive attenuation of clerical incomes. Under the old regime the parish clergy had independence and security; now they have little of either. Therefore, there is vastly more at stake for them in the event they are faced with disciplinary action. You refer to 291 cases, but it would be useful to know over what period. If it was 291 concurrent cases out of 7-8,000 stipendiaries, then that is quite a significant proportion of the profession.
Moreover, as the wider power and prestige of bishops has declined they have become that much more anxious to offset the effect by exerting greater authority over their own clergy.
It is time to have disciplinary structures fully independent of episcopal control.
I don’t recall getting one of these Sheldon questionnaires – when were they sent out? And I presume they didn’t go just to clergymen? I’m wondering if I was in the process of moving when they were sent, and it was that rather than my gender which accounts for the apparent lapse.
My heart goes out to innocent clergy caught up in a CDM. Thanks, Stephen, for continuing to shine light into some very dark corners of the C of E.