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Almost exactly one year ago, Surviving Church carried my blog piece on trauma-informed practice in safeguarding matters. https://survivingchurch.org/2022/12/10/trauma-informed-therapy-some-lessons-for-the-church/ It was a continuation, among other things, of my long-held dissatisfaction over the way that abuse survivors frequently encountered something other than compassionate understanding when seeking to tell their story to authority in the Church. I had noted some time ago that the National Safeguarding Team did not employ a single psychotherapist on its staff. The dominant NST skill set seemed to lean towards management I was thus pleased to see that Sarah Wilkinson, in her recent review of church safeguarding protocols, was anxious to emphasise the importance of trauma awareness among those who manage safeguarding at every level. This is the first sentence of her recommendation on this theme. ‘Everyone involved in decision making about safeguarding issues at the NCIs, from the Archbishops to case workers and including all members of the Archbishops’ Council, should have mandatory training on trauma-informed handling of complainants, victims and survivors.’ Wilkinson is evidently concerned at the high levels of stress and trauma being carried by survivors. This is exacerbated by the fact that many of those representing church bodies, who sit on powerful committees and deal with the survivors, has little or no prior understanding of the trauma and experience of being such a survivor. She rightly discerns that when highly vulnerable survivors are brought face to face with people with little empathy or understanding, the level of additional suffering endured will be considerable.
When we look at the Church as a whole, the question that might well be asked by an abuse survivor is whether this institution is ever a safe place to enter. The answer to this question may depend on our being able to discern where the particular local manifestation of church stands along a spectrum of what we can call abuse sensitivity. At one end of this spectrum, we find compassion and effective care. Here we encounter a readiness by a church to provide every conceivable form of help to survivors. There will be included spiritual, emotional and practical support over as long a period as is necessary. At the other end of our imaginary spectrum, we can envisage a harsh cold and bureaucratic indifference to the survivor. There would be no understanding of the pain and trauma, and even the existence of damage and vulnerability would be a cause of annoyance to the one trying to deal with the situation. The judgement about where the current levels of care in the Church are to be found has to be a matter for the discernment of the observer in each situation. At present, based on my listening to what people are saying, the consensus of opinion seems to find that the typical experience of care by the church is closer to the negative end of the spectrum. What is experienced is more likely to resemble what is routinely found as a bureaucratic or managerial response to this kind of issue.
Churches generally fall somewhere in-between the two extremes of the abuse response spectrum in the attitude they show to survivors. An inept or hurtful response to a survivor seeking help may of course be as much to do with ignorance and lack of training as it is an act of deliberate cruelty. The fact that amateur clumsy responses are retraumatising victims should, nevertheless, be a matter for concern. To say that so-and-so did not mean to hurt or trigger a painful reaction in an individual, already vulnerable, is not a good look for people who are claiming to preach a message of good news, love and healing to a hurting world. There is good news in all this, though one has to understand these words in a non-biblical sense. The good news is that the secular discipline of psychological healing does understand how to respond to trauma and can teach this skill to Christians. At the very least, church leaders and representatives need to learn from these experts how to stop heaping additional hurt on the vulnerable victims of church-based power abuse. This, in essence, is one important challenge that Wilkinson is presenting to our Church. We ignore it at our peril.
The contemporary discipline, practised by professional carers who are faced with clients afflicted by trauma, is one that offers hope to trauma victims and survivors of every kind. Various approaches can be found in the therapeutic literature, and I make no claim to any expertise in this area. Wilkinson was clearly, in making her recommendation for trauma-informed training to be provided across the Church, familiar with this material. What follows here is an overview of what one centre in the States, the Buffalo Centre for Social Research, describes as Trauma-Informed Care (TIC). Their helpful initial summary definition goes as follows. ‘Trauma-Informed Care calls for a change in organisational culture, where an emphasis is placed on understanding, respecting and appropriately responding to the effects of trauma at all levels.’ The short summary that follows this broad description of TIC, brings to our attention a number of observations about the wide prevalence of trauma in individuals seeking any kind of help. Because the presence of trauma is so widespread, the ability to respond appropriately has to be built into the culture and practice of all care providers. Their task is to provide appropriate support from the outset, providing a caring response towards any possible trauma victim. This support must be shared in such a way that it does not lead to the exacerbation of the existing trauma symptoms. One helpful question to be asked routinely, and which well articulates the assumptions and culture of TIC, is not ‘what is wrong with this person?’ but ‘what has happened to this person?’
The Buffalo approach makes a number of other helpful suggestions about the possibility of re-traumatisation. When an abused person has to experience a trauma over and over again through repeating the details to different agencies, this can be so painful that the survivor may be unwilling to cooperate with otherwise well-intended offers of help. Sensitivity over such things as the location of an interview with a senior official need to be carefully looked into. A TIC approach will ‘respond by changing policies, procedures and practices to minimise potential barriers.’ The staff dealing with abused individuals will always be alert to signs of trauma and thus lessen the danger of any re-traumatisation.
In some ways this blog piece follows the pattern of the previous one looking at the Nolan principles. TIC, it is clear, is also about values and culture rather than institutional competence. Instead of the seven Nolan principles we have the Five Guiding Principles of TIC. These are safety, choice, collaboration, trustworthiness and empowerment. In some ways each of the words is self-explanatory. Most of the values they describe focus on the importance of helping the survivor to feel safe and protected from any further exploitation of their vulnerability. Alongside this provision of safety and protection, there is also a recognition of the need to help the survivor to regain his/her own power and find the resilience to begin the process of healing. The Church often refers to the ideal of putting the survivor at the centre of the process of safeguarding. What we often find is an organisation in a state of panic, believing that its primary task is to protect its reputation (and assets) from the legitimate claims of the wounded and damaged. TIC presents us with another model, one that respects the need and the longing of survivors to heal so that they can continue their lives with new hope for their eventual complete wholeness.
Although I cannot claim to have mastered all the other detail of Sarah Wilkinson’s thorough and detailed review, it was helpful that she chose to shed some light on this major issue concerning trauma in the safeguarding process. Survivors are never a problem to be managed; rather they are a group of human beings who have emotional and practical needs as the result of abuse/trauma they may have suffered. Their practical needs may include the recovery of lost income and livelihoods and the availability of professional support from experienced therapists. Hopefully all these professionals will understand the meaning of trauma-informed help. If some of this sensitivity were to be a required part of the wider culture of the CofE, as Wilkinson recommends, the Church everywhere would become a more wholesome organisation, built on the gospel principles of compassion and love.
I have read accounts by clergy and other church leaders who are survivors, and are being retraumatised by the C of E’s compulsory safeguarding training. This is because the training is being led in a way that isn’t trauma-informed, and it doesn’t seem to occur to the trainers that survivors will be present. As they inevitably will be, since as many as 1 in 4 women are sexually abused in childhood, and a high proportion of men as well.
Ten years ago I was at one of the first safeguarding training sessions in York Diocese, which consisted of a lecture given to about 200 clergy. During the lecture the new diocesan safeguarding adviser (a whole 3 hours per month!) discussed the case of my own former vicar who was shortly to be tried on child sexual abuse charges. I had given the police evidence -a very traumatic procedure – and I well remember how traumatising it was to sit in the midst of a crowd of colleagues and hear the case discussed in that way, without being able to confide in anyone or escape from the room. It was awful. And the lecturer should have known better.
Manchester and Chester dioceses, where I had served previous to York, were well ahead of the game in offering competent professional safeguarding training. York was dire, and very late in the game.
Trauma still isn’t seen as anything to do with it. After all, as the Body of Christ the Church still considers itself a source of benevolent good. It seems preposterous that anyone could think of the Church, our Church, causing harm.
And yet, sadly the use of trauma is endemic. The Church has imported (or maybe exported?) methodologies from the outside world where people are routinely controlled by force.
Sure not so many are physically slapped around anymore (although sexual abuse is worse than this obviously) but the violence of words and actions to displace or manipulate people, is very common.
I recall a vicar, struggling to impact a congregation rather indifferent to his message, ordering the removal of people’s chairs during sung worship. Some thought this amusing or edgy, others traumatic. A few left, never to return, their safe space having been violated or at their astonishment at his (at best) clumsy ineptitude. One elderly lady, who had a slightly higher chair which helped her get out of it, was spared. So that was alright then? Her chair remained in an open area.
Trauma is being pushed beyond your own elastic boundaries. The change is irreversible and very distressing. The long term consequences are sticky and include complex post traumatic stress disorder.
But we don’t do this in our churches do we? Yes you do.
But to understand why training on trauma informed care is poorly done requires an understanding of the distance people put between themselves and the subject. They deeply haven’t accepted it happens right in their midst. Right amongst them. The stupefied Silence continues the trauma to their victims. This too they don’t understand.
“Physically slapped around”? You mean muscular christianity – I think the actual mentality hasn’t gone very much out of fashion. Doctrines and theology such as deafening amplifying destroying good music ministry (that is doctrine and theology) have been redefined as not “abuse”; a spiritually alert person may be stonewalled after offering helpful comment to the “amplifying pastor”.
My peers were told during a service that we weren’t waving our arms enough. That church weren’t hot on prayer either – I left the congregation several months before their senior leadership team “had to”. Elsewhere I had a “blessing imposed” unasked when sitting out of the communion ceremony (I’ll wear a hat there in future).
At another place a rural Dean / Rector made elaborate excuses for (rarely) reading a Psalm. A prevalent level of “biblically supported” organisational complacency, and our not being helped to know what belief is any more, and normalising of personal weirdness, is the ideal condition for worse from these vultures.
… I mean vultures who are cynical towards any legitimate-minded bishop.
Another excellent article !
Trauma is something that can effect us all. Are we not all “wounded healers” according to Henry Nouwen. Tomorrow any of us could be traumatised, a sudden death, diagnosis or divorce etc.
Surely trauma informed care should be a part of national safeguarding training along with spiritual abuse and domestic violence?
Social workers in training receive such training as they work with vulnerable people but so do churches.
A start has been made at http://www.traumainformedchurches.org and https://gohealth.org.uk/shop/being-trauma-informed/
Having watched the distressing first part of the dramatization of the treatment of sub postmasters wrongly accused of theft, and their fearful and traumatizing experiences, it seemed no compassion or kindness was shown to them by the organisation falsely accusing them. There appeared to be a professional lack of curiosity, as well as actual lying involved by those personally dealing with upright citizens falsely accused. Judging by the first part, nobody really wanted to listen to them, nor properly investigate their defence. Upholding the mantra that the computer software could not be at fault seemed enough reason to everyone to damn those accused and to excuse the lack of a thorough investigation. Given the numbers involved, it seemed to be an open secret that refusing to accept a possible fault in the system was better than conducting thorough and just investigations which might reveal the Post Office to be at fault. Victims needed to be treated in a trauma informed manner but were instead treated mercilessly, with priority given to the reputation of the organisation, which seemed unable to accept any fault on its part. And having caused grave harm unnecessarily to so many even after it must have been obvious that something was clearly wrong in the system, has there been any real accountability by those responsible? I was struck by the similarity to the Church of England with both organisations able to conduct legal processes and deal with victims as they wished, and both having no real accountability despite their power to ruin lives. The scope of abusing such power was clear. It is my belief that legal proceedings should mean going through our court system in open public and that no organisation should be able to conduct legal processes and act as the judge and jury on its own behalf and for its own benefit. Worshipping at the altar of reputation management is unlikely to result in trauma informed treatment of those the organisations need to find guilty and silence. In my presence it was confirmed to the National Director of Safeguarding that many survivors have been threatened and it has been confirmed that in some cases ndas have been used. In the case of the Post Office victims were forced to agree not to complain about the faulty software. As has been publicly noted, an Anglican priest was responsible for possibly the biggest case of injustice. Given the lack of justice experienced by many Church survivors, this possibly came as no surprise to them. It is time both organisations had an independent person to investigate misconduct and possible corrupt practices by individuals as has taken place in the Met police. Some of those with power and authority will abuse it. They need to be rooted out. And organisations need to be stripped of their power to be their own judge and jury and to be able to benefit from possible abuses of power.
This is one of the most telling analyses I’ve read on SC for a long time. Thanks Mary
Many thanks, and yet Vennells was not removed from the Church of England Ethical Investment Group until 2 years after her role in the scandal had become common knowledge (she did not resign). Nor has she resigned her orders (the bishop of St Albans has declared that he lacks the power to defrock her). Nor has she been deprived of her pension entitlements, nor her CBE, awarded shortly before her role became known (there is no need to be convicted to be stripped of an honour; Fred Goodwin lost his knighthood despite not having committed a crime – he lost it because of his staggering arrogance and incompetence).
You are surely right to point out the common denominator between both scandals.
94,749 people (as of 7.28am 4/1/24) had signed a petition seeking to see the CBE removed. This number has doubled overnight.
As of this morning, over 830,000 people had signed this petition. The government will have to put pressure on the Forfeiture Committee to have Reverend’s “Honour” removed because they are concerned about 830,000 votes, not because they care much about right or wrong.
Now the C of E is in a spot of bother. Normally they just ignore things in the usually successful ploy that people eventually get bored and forget about these people. However, if the CBE is removed, but the “Rev” isn’t, all the pressure is on the State Established Church. Will it now throw her under a bus, like it did with Mike Pilavachi? Obviously she was episcopate potential material before, but surely not now?
I don’t think we have a mechanism at present for defrocking a priest. I believe Vennells gave up her licence a year or so ago, but it reflects very badly on her that she hasn’t also returned her CBE.
Yes, and of course it doesn’t need de-frocking to hurt someone it chooses to. Millions of pounds were (were allowed to be) spent hurting others who didn’t deserve it, as I understand it in Oxford.
However with Soul Survivor’s former leader, he has been determined as “guilty” KC reviewed and CDM-ed, the Church equivalent of putting someone in the stocks, or worse, the medieval practice of witch dipping. But he’ll retain his titles I presume. Probably no one cares.
Distance is the thing the Church hasn’t yet established between itself and Vennells: “We’re totally against this”, sort of distance, and “by the way don’t take away our seats in the Lords”.
I seem to have missed Pilavachi being found guilty. In what forum, court, or way did that happen?
‘On 6 September the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) reported that their investigation into Canon Rev Mike Pilavachi had concluded and the allegations were “substantiated”.
‘These were described as both “abuse of power” and “spiritual abuse”. The NST said there had been a “systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour”.
‘Its conclusion was that Pilavachi had used spiritual authority “to control people and that his coercive and controlling behaviour led to inappropriate relationships, the physical wrestling of youths and massaging of young male interns”.’
https://www.premierchristianity.com/news-analysis/investigation-finds-mike-pilavachi-used-spiritual-authority-to-control-people-what-happens-now/16337.article
Thanks. Not sure how I missed that – though I did have a few weeks when my internet kept going down for days at a time.
NC has a useful timeline which I’ve referred to more than a few times:
https://mrsglw.wordpress.com/2023/05/14/the-soul-survivor-situation-a-timeline/
Mary’s interesting comparison between the Post Office scandal and structures within the CofE might be further understood by attention to Iain McGilchrist’s theory of the two hemispheres.
His seminal book The Master and His Emissary, subtitled The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World shows how the brain has two hemispheres: the Right comprehends the big picture, newness, possibilities and relationships, the Left focuses on specifics and representations.
At both an individual and societal level we currently favour the mode used by the left brain to our individual and mutual harm and disadvantage.
Here are some links as a way into some of this material which has very significant import in all areas of life.
https://www.ted.com/talks/iain_mcgilchrist_the_divided_brain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY89D1UC9Dw
Thanks Chris. Is this true of female brains as well as male brains? So much research is done on male brains only.
Janet
What a good question!
I am only starting to explore his ideas and their implications – McGilchrist is a polymath and his books are very thick! I expect he has covered this question in depth somewhere in his books.
However I found this quote at
https://unherd.com/2023/05/left-brain-thinking-will-destroy-civilisation/
Q “Is there a difference between the male and female brain?”
A
IM: “Yes. This question always comes up. And the trouble is that, to answer it in a sensitive way, I’d have to spend quite a lot of time answering it. To put it very simply: I think it’s certainly not true that the right hemisphere is somehow female, and the left hemisphere male. If anything, it’s the opposite. For example, what’s established beyond doubt is women’s excellence lies in skills that are often linguistic. Whereas men may be much less linguistic, but more able to manipulate things in space. That is a right hemisphere property largely, and linguistic fluency is largely a left hemisphere property.
In utero, it is testosterone that causes the right hemisphere to expand. Women’s hemispheres are more similar to one another. I think it’s pretty indisputable that male brains are more specialised, the left and right. Whereas in female brains, there’s more overlap between the left and right. So there’s more of the right about the left and more of the left about the right than there is in a man. And this means that if a woman has a stroke on one side, she’s more likely to be able to recover using the other hemisphere than a man. Neither is better. It’s just different ways of being.”
One might also suppose that “executive” social organisations that have been male dominated for years will also have more Lt hemisphere style thinking cultures??
He probably offers evidence for this somewhere as well?
Dear Janet and fellow readers of this blog,
A final link to learn more about Iain McGilchrist, the man and his work!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2So6GC6OS6E
My next step is to start to read his books, (but conscious that although as a retired doctor the biomedical aspects will be very interesting, the philosophy will probably be difficult or impossible to handle!)
Chris, thank you for the link to Iain McGilchrist, greatly appreciated. I shall be delving into his books and videos with enthusiasm.
Thanks Chris. The TED talk you linked to was very male, but I see it was recorded two years before discoveries that male and female brains are structured differently were widely publicised. It’s good to see that McGilchrist has brought his thinking up to date somewhat.
Thank you Mary for your incisive comments. So true!
Mary, thank you for this thoughtful and constructive analysis. The CofE is neither competent nor capable of dealing with safeguarding concerns and/or issues. CofE personnel do not understand objectivity and independence. Personnel are more interested in defending both the institution’s and their own reputations rather than delivering fair justice. Perhaps Professor Jay’s review will give us some hope for the future.
The problem is not that we survivor supporters within the Church cannot provide the evidence to make the comparison between the Post Office and the CofE meaningful , it is getting enough Synod members to take the matters seriously that is our problem.
If you know General Synod members – please get on their case and urge them to do their job.
“it is getting enough Synod members to take the matters seriously that is our problem”
Is that problem a function of the way in which Synod is ‘elected’ by means of a largely self-appointing selectocracy within the House of Laity (with a large leaven of Church officials), the House of Clergy being (to a large extent) comprised of those who have an interest in being the beneficiaries of episcopal and official patronage, and the House of Bishops having absolutely no interest in looking in the mirror?
I know I have whined about the composition of Synod on many occasions in the past, sometimes to the anger of many, but it is a profoundly flawed legislature, which is inherently incapable of holding those in power to account. However, this is no surprise: it was set up so as not to compromise the authority of the episcopate.
The Church of England can act swiftly and decisively when it chooses to. For example the Rev Canon M Pilavachi has been found “guilty” and subjected to an external KC review and internal Church Disciplinary Measure. He’s not going to be exonerated by these.
The general direction of these procedures is damage limitation. Of course 4 decades of abusive controlling behaviour (amongst other things) cannot have occurred in a vacuum, and was obviously facilitated by many many others who stood to benefit from MP’s powerful ministry and the income this generated. The C of E tried to own him, by ordaining and further bestowments. Of course he hedged his bets right across charis-gelical-dom, so many others are implicated.
The aim now will be to show that it was “all him” and others will quietly slip away. Meanwhile the Soul Survivor methodology used across this genre, will be operated almost without variation, just as the techniques used in the Sheffield Nine OClock Service where used at New Wine, long after Brain had been expelled. Stephen Parsons was right about the similarities.
Can the C of E be changed from within? I respect and support those who try. But change mainly happens from the outside in, as a wider society learns of the egregious wrongdoing perpetrated by those wearing dog collars, and rightly trusts them less and less.
Those on the fringe of the Church (often looking in having been constructively dismissed) are our main target audience. They realise they are not alone, and find support and encouragement from similar others to unite in this movement to expose what’s wrong, and it usually isn’t them, and find wholeness away from it.
Steve, your final paragraph summarises perfectly where I stand – thank you. Whilst I had to walk away from my battle with the Diocese I had been involved with as I could no longer bear the exhaustive toll it was taking on me and my family, I look on with admiration and gratitude towards those who continue to fight on.
During the pandemic, one of the clergy involved in my case was very public in calling for a return to public worship in church, and suggested that online worship wasn’t the real thing. Ironically, my personal experience of them showed me why so many people seem perfectly able to find wholeness outside of the CofE – Sunday church attendance wouldn’t be so statistically low if the situation was anything otherwise.
The sadness is that what people think of the Church often then reflects upon God, and one of the transitions which I have had to make is to de-couple the two. I would certainly say that I feel more rounded for having done so.
Strength to your arm James!
Lennie Bruce famously said that every day people are leaving the Churches and finding their way back to God.
Many a true word….
Indeed. The lack of moral leadership – most notably in relation to the present slaughter in Gaza – has been staggering.
Not only Gaza, of course. No mention of the slaughter in Sudan. None of the slaughter in Yemen. Nothing on the ethnic cleansing of ancient Christian Armenian communities in Nagorno-Karabakh. And so on. How many of our fifth-rate higher clergy could even find Nagorno-Karabakh on a map?
In the 1960s and 1970s many clergy were vocal in their condemnation of US predation in Indo-China. Even so pliable and ‘establishment’ a figure as Geoffrey Fisher caused acute embarrassment to David Kilmuir during Lords debates over Suez. And now? Barely a whisper. It’s truly pathetic.
https://premierchristian.news/en/news/article/the-post-office-is-the-church-of-england-at-prayer-says-survivor-advocate?utm_source=Premier%20Christian%20Media&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=14290240_daily%20news%2009%20J
Arrived this morning.
Steve
After I had an interview with Premier Christian Radio on the close parallels between the scandals of the Post OFfice and CofE treatment of their victims, listeners heard a statement from CofE Communicatoons Team to which I responded” that could have been written by the Post Office”
Martin,
I imagine one significant reason that the victims of church-related abuse will never get the justice that finally looks to be heading the way of the Post Office victims/survivors is that Toby Jones would be simply unable to play the parts of all the many dozens of victims of Church-related abuse who have been complaining (and been utterly ignored by the Church hierarchy) for years/decades.
The role of government ministers whose portfolio was the post office has been brought up. This makes me wonder about the parliamentary ecclesiastical committee. Does anyone know of any action of theirs apart from work on passing cdm etc which is then, at times, ignored by senior clergy. In other words have they done anything for Church victims?
It’s hundreds or even thousands, not dozens. And I wouldn’t like to see Toby Jones – or any man – playing my part. I’ll be modest and suggest Judi Dench or Meryl Streep ;-). Though it’s been going on so long they’ll have to get a young actress to play the 30-year-old me, and Dench can play the 70-year old.
This was a reply to Simon, I don’t know why it’s appeared as a reply to Mary!
Janet,
Many thanks for your replies, and absolutely points taken.
Even as I hit the Post Comment button I realised that I wanted to add ‘or Julie Hessmondhalgh’ but I didn’t know how to correct a submission to ‘Surviving Church’.
So even more thanks for giving me that opportunity now!
Too true Martin. This is so important, let’s hope it is heard on many levels.
Adrian and Margaret: actually the people I work with could go through the ITV drama and put suggestions for counterpart character names/roles to many of the characters, thus there are similarities between the CEO’s leaderships and I could tell you who others are: my own nomination for Mr Bates would be a Gilo who was instrumental in setting up the early conversations bringing disparate people together to compare notes . There are counterpart lawyers, journalists, whistleblowers etc.
The similarities are so very close as to roles, the character of the abuses ( the “ non apology apologies” the corporate speak, the NDAs the redacted documents, the withdrawn mediation offers etc) it really is uncanny.
I see this documentary at this time as Providential – God’s gift to Survivors: now we just have to use it and make the comparisons.
So what are the selection criteria for applying for a high profile bishopric? if its not about experience of running a parish and experience of being in a senior leadership position then is it about transferable skills?
Here is Ms Vennells’ entry from Crockford, with contact info redacted:
Biography
Born: 1959
Ordained Deacon: 2005
Ordained Priest: 2006
Education
Bradford University BA 1981
FRSA 1988
Ordination Training
St Albans & Oxford Ministry Course 2002
Ministry
Non-stipendiary minister St Albans 2005-2021 (1 benefice, 3 rural villages)
Part-Time ministry course and no further theological qualification; experience of ministry in one setting only; no incumbency or chaplaincy experience; no experience of managing volunteers (as far as we can tell); no experience of working in an institution rather than a profit-making business; no experience of living in a church house with its constant interruptions and lack of privacy.
She has management experience at a high level, but none in the sort of organisation she’d have been expected to manage as a bishop; and no experience of the working conditions of those she would be expected to care for.
That Vennells was in the frame for London at all is probably due in part to the influence of the Green report of 2014: https://www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-12/gs_2026_-_nurturing_and_discerning_senior_leaders.pdf. As many readers will recall, that report was one of the ‘first fruits’ of the new Welby primacy. Opinions about the Green report were sharply divided in 2014-15, the balance of opinion (arguably led by Dr Percy) was that it was not nearly as much of a Good Thing as its advocates believed, and that it was part of a managerial ramp which has been ever more prominent over the last decade, a decade in which church attendance has continued to slump, at perhaps a greater speed than before.
The supreme irony is that Lord Green was commissioned to prepare that report in the wake of his leadership of HSBC having been very largely discredited by money laundering allegations (including funds for the Sinaloa cartel). Whilst he was not himself accused of wrongdoing, much City opinion concluded that he had presided over an unwieldy financial conglomerate (which is what HSBC had become) that was not functioning optimally (if I can put it that way).
Wasn’t Paula Vennells also involved in working on the Green Report?
Its effect on leadership in the C of E has been disastrous.
Well, if the tv drama about the post office scandal is correct, and I believe the post office would sue if it was not, the CEO justified her actions by saying it was for the reputation of the post office. Need I say more?
The recruitment or preferment of senior people is quite deliberate. Their lack of experience in some cases is desired, specifically their lack of empathy for those they may soon be in charge of. In particular, when a hatchet job is required, the ability to bulldoze through people without much (if any) sentiment for their roles helps if there’s not much experience of it. The apparent lack of work experience in the candidate, is thus not necessarily an oversight by the recruiters. This is ugly however, particularly if you’ve been on the receiving end of their ministrations.
The counterpart to this is the power given to some, for example Pilavachi, well in excess of his technical rank. This is because he delivers numerical growth in young people in the church, or at least used to.
But whenever the normal reasonable moral procedures are bypassed, the Church moves further away and thus damages its true mission. Damage and chaos is the result.
That’s what is so horrifying. The Archbishop of Canterbury personally supported a candidate who could have no first-hand knowledge of the pressures the clergy are under, nor of what it’s like to be a volunteer in an inner-city church. It’s as if a shepherd deliberately let Rottweilers into the sheep pasture. It’s a betrayal of his calling. Jesus said to Peter, ‘Feed my sheep, tend my lambs,’ not ‘Manage some systems’.
While I agree with many criticisms of the episcopate, 2 things stand out:
Firstly the apparent lack of intellectual rigour, seeming inability to understand, let alone prosecute, reasoned/complex arguments & to think even one move, let alone several, ahead, from (some/many) Bishops.
Obviously safeguarding is one of the areas that demonstrates this most clearly.
But equally, how come no single Bishop has anything to say about the Post Office scandal/Paula Vennells? Is it really more important to complain that Easter Eggs are in the shops too early than address how & why an utterly unqualified person was on a shortlist of 4 for the 3rd most senior position in the Church?
There are intelligent priests around, so my working assumption is that most of those with the ability to think for themselves are rigorously ‘rooted out’ by the selection process of the past 15 years. (There’s still the ‘odd antediluvian dinosaur’ like Alan Wilson hanging around I think?).
The second observation is that the behaviour of the Archbishops’ Council is even worse, perhaps because William Nye’s influence is proportionately greater?
By way of example: how could the very experienced Bishop of St Albans possibly have short-circuited the training of Mike Pilavachi, thereby repeating the exact same mistake made by the church under George Carey re Chris Brain? Do these people learn nothing?
Secondly the Church has had Sarah Wilkinson’s report since 30 November 2023. It has not issued its promised response yet, but merely a single press release that utterly selectively quoted the few conclusions that are only mildly critical of the Church, & ignored all the many withering criticisms!
All this from leaders whose mission it is to love the Lord our God & our Neighbour as ourself?
Individually they must surely be good people seeking to do their very best, so how come results struggle to reflect that?
A political analogy: if you accept that 99% of individual MPs head off to Parliament when first elected, aiming to do the right thing & serve their constituents, it is tempting to blame the Whips system, the Westminster village & the pressure to conform for the results that we see from many of them.
Could it be that Bishops get ‘highjacked’ by Church House, the Secretary General, the whole consensus or whoever/whatever, or is it really just that they exclusively pick those that will conform in the first place?
Would it that we had many more ‘Ken Clarkes’ or similar, anyone with the independence, experience & intellectual self confidence to ignore the party line & tell it like it is.
Surely that would result in a more humane, caring, responsive, & above all EFFECTIVE Church leadership?
Being a leader in the C of E is a very demanding task; few would accept that responsibility lightly; it seems impossible for any individual to be Head of the C of E & also of the Anglican Communion.
However are we in the C of E in danger of being authors of our…
….. authors of our own misfortune.
Having worked with very bright people, and I’m sure, indeed I know first hand that bishops are no exception, there are a couple of observations to make. ‘A’ grades a plenty, 1st Class degrees all over the shop and pHds two a penny, these usually accompany senior people on the rise. However no qualification equips you fully for the next level, and not much at all for the very top.
And none of these things gives you moral courage, a quality you will need in abundance to bring those you lead away from the tide of malevolent miss-use towards the light of justice and truth. Being good at exams or The Times Crossword doesn’t give you this, handy though those skills are.
If you don’t have courage and goodness at the start of your rise to power, you won’t miraculously find them higher up. Conversely, your shortcomings, overlooked in junior grades, are magnified at the higher levels. A lot more people are watching what you’re doing and expecting a lot better.
It’s also pretty obvious that some kind of three-line-whip is operating, of corporate agreed silence. Layer onto this the habitual deference for the higher grades, and they all keep quiet.
Finally the bizarre structure of the Church with its myriad of separate legal entities and autonomous dioceses and parishes, effectively means no one is responsible for anything. Nothing to do with me, they think. How do you change anything in this diffuse kingdom?
Yes they’re bright, but no they don’t have the guts to improve anything.
I was watching my favourite lawyer Gerry Spence lecture. He observed that he spends time in the Wyoming wilderness: if you are out there in winter when the snow falls: “ if you are there with a old mule and a guy with an IQ of 150- who are you going to trust to get you home safely?”
We are not always very good at weighing people up, as I watch “Traitors” (under duress I should add) and witness (no spoilers please) the delegates getting it wrong yet again.
Ps I’m hooked now.
Unfortunately I don’t know Steve, but I know that Martin will have met many more Bishops than me.
However I have met & heard a considerable number over the last 20 years, though the majority have been from the Southern province.
In general, & of course there have been many wonderful individual exceptions (Kenneth Stevenson take a bow), I have been rather underwhelmed. I have been surprised at how ‘unbright’ the majority of them have been & are.
For example I fully accept that perhaps preaching is only a very small part of the role, but I have now reached the stage where, with a few notable exceptions, I expect to be disappointed by episcopal sermons. This even extends to several Bishops who have high reputations and to whom I looked forward to hearing with such great hopes.
So I disagree with Steve & Martin in that I don’t believe the problem is that our Bishops are too bright. IMO a very significant part of the problem is that many may not be (nearly) bright enough?
I’m sure much of the fault is mine. My standards are probably unrealistically high and, as David Scott’s poem reminds us, what leaves me cold may well have benefited another.
Again I was probably hopelessly naive, but I had such comparatively high hopes for the Church & its Leadership around 2013, whereas much of my experience since around 2015 has been terribly disappointing.
Before anyone wrongly equates this with the rise in the number of female bishops, I must confirm that this is not an issue of gender: proportionally male bishops have been just as disappointing, if not more so.
And of course there have been many wonderful exceptions to such a generalisation. The previous ABC would hate to be picked out but there are few joys that match hearing Rowan in full flow.
However where I agree much more with both Steve & Martin is that it’s not their ability that matters anyway, it’s what they do with it. And, as both Steve & Martin explain, it is here where the greatest disappointment lies & unfortunately this appears more pronounced now in 2024 than I can ever remember previously. I genuinely don’t think that is a case of rose-tinted spectacles nor a case of ‘Bishops ain’t what they used to be’.
Very regrettably I too find ‘moral courage’ (to quote Steve) almost entirely absent these days.
I fully accept that it is often a very demanding role, I would like to think there are individual exceptions, & I’m sure my expectations must be unrealistic.
Furthermore I hope to be shocked & surprised (in a good way) for the rest of 2024 given that surely things must improve from 2023, & those July & November General Synods?
Jesus chose to build His church upon the rock of Peter. Perhaps we could discern some executive recruitment ideas from there?
In the periphery of society and probably on zero hours contracts, Peter and the other recruits were educated in the skilful but arduous work of landing fish for food. He was marked out by a public failure at the start of his career, rather than at the end, when he started sinking. This kept him humble for good.
Nicodemas, one of the few academically educated men getting a relatively positive mention, comes in for some fairly strong critique from our Lord for his theological misunderstandings.
A tax accountant, presumably well-schooled also gets a look in, but only after he repents publicly of fraud, presumably then also keeping him humble for life.
The rest of the apostles were working class. Later in Acts, Paul was an acknowledged murderer, educated in theology, but kept himself by working with his hands too.
Jesus looked for character and passion. These seemed to be the places He found it.
George Carey had no involvement in the fast-tracking of Chris Brain to ordination. That was done by the Bishop of Sheffield, David Lunn; Sheffield isn’t even in Canterbury’s province. Incidentally, Carey was made Archbishop in April 1991, the same year that Brain was deaconed.
It was Lunn and Archdeacon Stephen Lowe who were responsible for the special status enjoyed by Brain and the Nine O’Clock Service, before Carey was even thought of for Canterbury. I had some familiarity with these developments because the church where I was then a curate had links with NOS.
https://unherd.com/2024/01/will-the-church-follow-the-post-office/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups%5B0%5D=18743&tl_period_type=3
Refreshing honesty and mea culpa from Giles Fraser. Well worth reading
“”In the light of the Post Office scandal, there has been much understandable anger about Vennell’s personally, claims that she is somehow morally deficient and in it for the money. I don’t quite share this view. In a sense, I think it’s worse than that. What the shocking treatment of sub-postmasters has revealed is not so much a story of avarice but of unwarranted trust in systems — systems of management, systems of technology — over people. This is the 21st-century equivalent of the banality of evil. And now, 700 ordinary decent men and women have been accused and prosecuted for theft on the say-so of a system of data. Divorces followed, stress, illness, bankruptcy, in some cases suicide. Apparently they thought computer systems — unlike people — could never sin.””
Giles Fraser exemplifies exactly what Iain McGilchrist’s theory of the Divided Brain predicts for our societal life, as laid out in his first magnum opus, ‘The Master and His Emissary’
McGilchrist even offers a cogent explanation!
Abuse victims were likened to the victims of the Post Office scandal by Sarah Champion MP on this week’s radio 4 Any Questions. Some people out there are getting it.
Suffering Survivors! Recently I realised I have some information which might help us all.
The Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser in Kenneth’s case said in July 2020 in a zoom meeting ‘the role of safeguarding is not to assign guilt but rather to manage risk, and in so doing it is victim/survivor led’. She explained that she was following the House of Bishop’s Guidance in this and it meant the boy complainant would be asked what he wanted to happen to Kenneth as a result of this (unsubstantiated) allegation, and he only one month after his fourteenth Birthday!!.
Although she was asked many times in the years that followed for the reference in the House of Bishops Guidance for this statement none was forthcoming.
The Bishop of the Diocese became involved because of the CDM filed against a Canon at the Cathedral.
https://survivingchurch.org/2023/11/02/searching-for-truth-how-kenneth-has-been-failed-by-the-justice-system-of-the-church-of-england/
A month ago he sent me (not Kenneth) an email giving all the reasons Kenneth’s case could not be progressed. In that email he restated ten points that had been already robustly proved to be wrong in no less than four formal complaints which were never responded to.
The information for this email last month had been given to him by the DSA. One of the statements was the one above in para 2. Since a Bishop quoted this phrase and he presumably is part of the House of Bishop’s Guidance, surely it gives veracity to the statement. Ironically this surely means that all you victim/survivors could claim that you want your cases to be victim/survivor led.
It follows, then, that we could all write to the Archbishop of Canterbury and say we want the person behind the bad practices and injustices to be suspended. We all know who that is don’t we? If you send your letter ‘Special Delivery’ it will be guaranteed delivery and signed for at the Lambeth end. You will be able to read online who signed for it. I have already drafted my letter and will post tomorrow.
This morning I watched Andy Burnham and others talking at length about the Rochdale child abuse which began in 2004. Twenty years later yet another review bringing out the truth following on the heels of the Post Office. Can we make the Church of England a third one? Perhaps we can after the Jay review is published but even if not our letters might be effective.
Write on my friends, let’s not delay.