by Robert Thompson

“Bear fruits worthy of repentance,” says John the Baptist. The people who have come to hear him ask, “What then should we do?” John’s answer depends on what each person has the power to do. Someone with two coats can give one away. A tax collector can stop taking more than is due. I wonder what John would say to those of us who sit on the General Synod of the Church of England. I believe repentance requires the Church to share its power. That means agreeing new ways of making decisions, so that people who have suffered abuse can find out what the Church has done, challenge what it has withheld and have a vote when Synod decides what happens next.

I have been thinking about that since Russell Brand’s conviction for rape and sexual assault. Four women gave evidence about what he had done to them. Earlier, some of my sibling Christians had publicly welcomed his conversion. As a priest, I understand something of that response. Every time I stand at the font, I mean what I say about the possibility of new life. What troubles me is how readily we recognise grace in the story a famous person tells about himself. I find myself wondering what someone who has suffered abuse would recognise as evidence of repentance in the Church I serve.

In parish ministry I have sat with people who have suffered abuse. I have also heard from survivors who have spent years trying to establish who in the Church knew what, when they knew it and what they did. Think for a moment about what we ask of someone in that position. They have already told the Church what happened. Now they must write to the very people whose conduct they are questioning and ask for an account of what those people did. Even the decision about how much of an answer they get can rest with the institution they have called to account.

That is the experience I have in mind as I prepare three private members’ motions for this five-year term of Synod.

The first would ask the Church to seek the extension of the Freedom of Information Act to its national institutions, diocesan boards of finance, bishops’ offices and cathedral bodies. Suppose a diocese commissions a safeguarding review. Anyone ought to be able to ask what it cost, what the diocese agreed to do and which recommendations it has carried out. Those questions can be answered while protecting the identity of the person who first raised the concern. Indeed, that person may be the one asking.

The second motion concerns the safeguarding and complaints files themselves. A single file can contain intensely personal information about several people. There will be good reasons to withhold some details. But if I am asking how a bishop handled my disclosure, who should decide which parts of the record I may see? I want Synod to commission a costed scheme for an independent body to take responsibility for those records and for decisions about disclosure. For somebody who has already been passed from one Church office to another, the practical test is simple enough. Can I make one request, get a reasoned answer in a stated time, and challenge it? Independent review of disputed refusals could begin while the fuller scheme is developed.

The third motion asks who gets to sit and vote in Synod. There are victims and survivors among our elected members already. They owe the rest of us no disclosure about their lives. I am thinking also of someone who left the Church because of what happened to them. How would we hear from that person through our usual elections? Their reason for leaving may be the very thing Synod most needs to understand.

I would like us to create five additional places with full voting rights for victims and survivors of Church-related abuse, open also to people who have left the Church. In co-opting Global Majority Heritage members, Synod has already acknowledged that its ordinary elections can leave important experience missing from the room. We can draw on that experience here.

Who chooses the five is a fair question. An election would require an electoral roll. I see little justification for asking people to register as survivors so that they may vote. My starting proposal is an open invitation, confidential applications and a selection panel on which survivors hold the majority. Survivors themselves should help decide how that panel is appointed. I would want any scheme we devise to answer one fairly searching question. Would somebody who has publicly criticised the Church stand as good a chance of being chosen as somebody its leaders already know and trust?

Each of the five would exercise their own judgement, as I do as an elected member for London. They might disagree with one another about safeguarding. They might want to speak about clergy pensions. They should be able to sit through a difficult debate, say nothing about their own experience and cast their vote. We would owe them proper expenses, independent support of their choosing and the freedom to turn down every invitation to tell their story. Before the five-year term ends, they should help Synod judge how the arrangement has worked.

At the Eucharist, I say the confession alongside everyone else. By the time I reach the vestry afterwards, there may be a difficult email waiting for me from somebody who wants an answer about a decision I helped make. What I do with that email belongs to the same Christian life as the prayer I have just said.

I would like us to read our Synod papers in that spirit. Imagine being the person who first raised a concern. Could you find out what the Church decided? Could you challenge what it withheld? And when Synod votes on what should happen next, could you be there, with a vote that counts as much as mine?