There was a comment on the last blog post about what can happen when ordinary clergy ask difficult questions at a Diocesan Synod. The particular Synod questioner, writing on this blog as ‘Margaret’, was describing the way that senior staff felt ‘uncomfortable’ because their decisions were being challenged. This has caused me to reflect about the costs involved in speaking truth to power. The writer then told us how her questions had led to a later awkward meeting with the Diocesan bishop. At this meeting she was asked/told not to query such things as diocesan expenditure. Arising out of this meeting, was the realisation that she was being cast in the role of ‘troublemaker’ by all the members of the Bishop’s senior staff. Various hoped-for opportunities for ministerial development had then been closed to her. Other training options and the possibility of a new post had also evaporated. To describe the situation from another point of view, the power of patronage that had helped her up to a certain point was now being withdrawn. When I use this word patronage in this context, I am not talking about those with the gift of presentation to a parish, I am referring more generally to those who have power within any hierarchical system to advance or hinder an individual’s career. Cutting off Margaret’s opportunities for extending her ministry was, to put it bluntly, the price that she had to pay for speaking her truth and prophesying to the system. Those with the power, here the power of patronage, were wielding it to protect their power and their ‘right’ not to be made to feel uncomfortable in their administration of the Diocese.
We have, of course, in Margaret’s account, only one side of the story. I am, nevertheless, inclined to take her version seriously, especially as she mentions the earlier hints that she had been a valued member of the Diocese and once could look forward to new opportunities, even preferment. We can imagine that, before her name became synonymous with ‘awkward’ and ‘nuisance’, the senior staff would normally have thought of her role in the Diocese with approval. But now that she had upset the system by challenging power, her reputation had been allowed to plummet. The issue for senior staff seemed to be, not whether she was right or wrong in her questioning. The issue was her audacity in questioning the senior office holders holding power. It is hard to see that once the groupthink of the senior staff had come to their conclusion about Margaret’s behaviour, that there were any obvious ways to recover their favour. Her final word on this dynamic was this: ‘Those of us who could be a voice of change, are being excluded by those who hold power’.
To be thought ill of by a single individual is not pleasant at the best of times. When one’s reputation is trashed by a group, that is extremely difficult and hard to deal with. We can imagine a situation where the reputation of one person is quickly decided upon within a group/committee, perhaps because of the bias and known dislike felt by one or two members. This tendency for a group to listen to and base its opinion on unverified gossip, is what seems to have happened in the case of Father Philip Griffin. This case will be remembered for a long time in the Church in England. It appears to be a classic example of what can happen when no individual in a working group wants to challenge the groupthink about an individual in a committee type setting. In the Griffin case, group processes allowed a tragedy – a suicide- to take place. It was not only the failures of protocol that here are shocking; there is also a miasma of incompetence and prejudice all around the event. Gossip and reputation shredding against those who did not meet with the approval of those in power in the Diocese of London, seem to be rampant in London safeguarding circles and no doubt elsewhere. It never seemed to occur to those in charge how important it is always to disentangle innuendo from properly attested factual material. Groupthink is a dangerous power dynamic at the best of times. When it is weaponised and applied against individuals who are out of favour for any reason, it can be extremely dangerous and a likely cause of injustice or worse.
Many people have been wondering over the past few months how the Church of England can carry on with so many crises and challenges to its integrity. There is surely a limit to the number of times it is realistic to say that ‘lessons will be learned’. Some of the crises are indeed financial and practical – how do we pay the bills and find a way to keep churches open? The greater crisis is the moral one. Does the Church speak to the nation of honesty, integrity and straightforward dealing? Alternatively, what are people seeing, when they look on? Is it just a relatively small privileged group clutching onto status and the remains of past historical glory? The report of the coroner in the Griffin case, Mary Hassall, contained one further shocking detail. It is one that reveals attitudes in the Church, which claim, as of right, privilege and status within society. The coroner was asked to avoid criticising clergy and other officials by name. This action suggested an institution in full panic mode. The Church seemed to be asking the coroner to cooperate in its projection of a manicured self-promotion. ‘We cannot let our shabby behaviour be seen by the wider public. Our reputation must at all costs be preserved even if we have presided over a terrible safeguarding failure’. The coroner also referred to 42 other clergy who have acquired tarnished reputations over the past twenty years. We have at present no means of knowing whether any accusations against these clergy are based on solid evidence or are rooted in a mixture of gossip and innuendo. There must be an extraordinarily low level of morale in the Diocese of London at this moment. This probing of a senior management structure that tolerates sloppy oversight over its clergy and its own structures does not suggest a good setting in which to work. The implications of this story will run and run. One thing that is quite clear is that the case for independent scrutiny of church structures in London is clearly strong. Any independent person coming into committee settings where gossip and intrigue was shared, would surely blow a professional whistle to halt such nonsense. The question that has always to be asked is, what is the evidence? Who has made a complaint? When did the accusation first appear and who knew about it? The coroner has rightly criticised a complete failure to disentangle innuendo and gossip from properly established facts. As a final twist to the appalling suffering of Father Griffin, is the fact that the investigations against him, even if not part of a formal CDM process, here as elsewhere, were allowed to drag on interminably because no one seemed willing to make decisive decisions.
Returning to Margaret’s account discussed above, I found myself asking the question which might have occurred to my readers. What would I do in her situation? Would I ever challenge a diocese and its structures if I felt money was being misused or some personnel decisions were being made which appeared to be wrong? The answer is that I probably would never have done such things. I would probably be doing what most clergy do in such a situation. That is to keep noses clean and continue their ministry without the risk of being considered a troublemaker. In other words, my critical faculties, when sitting on church committees, might have been subdued if I felt the powers of patronage present. I am sure that there are many in the Church who think like this: any thing not to damage one’s career and one’s peace of mind. In short, integrity and the exercise of the prophetic role will normally take second place to a quiet and safe life.
One of the interesting things about my retirement from full-time ministry has been the discovery of things to say about the Church. These while still in active ministry, would never have been explored.. In reading Margaret’s account, I realise how much of what I have to say here is made possible by being in a situation of retirement. I have reached the time of life, where from the perspective of Diocesan structures, I am completely invisible. For reasons that I do not understand, my PTO application to replace the previous one, which expired in April 2019, has been lost in the system. It is probably a combination of Covid, paperwork confusions and possibly administrative incompetence that has meant that I am still waiting. One good thing that has come out of this fallow time from normal retirement ministry, is the freedom to focus on the ‘different’ ministry that has come through writing this blog. I seem to be in touch with dozens of people up and down the country who are involved with (or victims of) safeguarding issues. If my name were ever to come up at a local Bishop’s staff meeting, there would be a complete blank on all the faces present. I am unknown to all of them. While this invisibility would have mattered a great deal when I was at the height of my active ministry, it seems to be less important as I get older. It certainly means that I have less to fear from the dreaded threat to the mental well-being of all clergy, called the CDM.
The apparent life-changing, career-changing effect of speaking prophetic truth to power that Margaret suffered in her diocese can be undertaken with a greater freedom by those of us who have, because of our retirement status, no current stake in the system. We have this freedom to say things that others cannot say because they are under the potentially arbitrary exercise of church power used against them. It is important for others of us to use the power of the pen and the net to defend and support powerless victims of power abuse. I salute the courage and bravery of dozens of individuals who suffer under the exercise of arbitrary power. The freedom that my retirement status gives me means that I will always (strength permitting) be able and ready to fight on behalf of those who are bullied, exploited or treated badly by those with power in the Church.
I believe it has been established from a chronology that Father Griffin was not subject to any formal CDM by the C of E. Rather it was a record of unsubstantiated allegations, really gossip and no more than conjecture about his private life, which became ever more distorted to the extent that at the Inquest the Senior Coroner made factual findings that they were untrue. These matters were further compounded by the C of E having passed this untrue and unchecked misinformation to the RC church.
The Coroner addressed her Prevention of Future Deaths Report to the Archbishop of Canterbury, I suspect the first time such a thing will have happened. A report has also gone to the RC church. The full texts of both can be found on ‘Thinking Anglicans’ 17 July 2021.
Thank you Rowland. I have corrected my text to accommodate your point about the CDM. Fr Griffin certainly lived with a miasma of suspicion which was impossible to clear as he did not know what his offence was supposed to be. That is similar to the suffering of those who have cdm processes hanging over them for long periods of time.
I have just written on another blog something of a sermon, which I won’t repeat here, the gist of which asks how the C of E can continue to operate procedures which are incompatible with natural law and the law of the land. I ask this as a genuinely puzzled and loyal C of E layman.
Link Rowland?
The current thread on ‘Archbishop Cranmer’, but when I last looked it was largely swallowed up by other comments. There is a particularly appropriate comment there by Richard Pinch about the covering up of names and, let’s be frank, misdeeds in the Christ Church CDM procedure. The drift of my piece is that these things would not be allowed to happen in the legal system – criminal or civil – where the courts can and do compel relevant disclosure.
My wager, in response to your very pertinent question, is that:
(i) there is a degree of establishment entitlement, threadbare though the establishment connections might be;
(ii) they say to themselves ‘we are good and upstanding Christians, so what we do, or don’t do, cannot be wrong’, even if it is (or ‘we appreciate that what we did or didn’t do might have been wrong, but even if it was wrong, we did or didn’t do it in a Christian way’);
(iii) the Church has become accustomed to certain exemptions, such as from FOIA (despite bishops, the Commissioners, etc., being quasi-public corporations), which is most important, or from requirements associated with the maintenance of ancient buildings;
(iv) the existence of a separate system or carapace of ecclesiastical courts, diocesan registrars, etc., makes the authorities believe that they are insulated from the baleful effects of wrongdoing, or that the resolution of wrongdoing can be internalised within its legal structures (which are, after all, still part of the national legal system, even if most lawyers have forgotten, or never even knew, about them);
(v) the antiquity of the institution, and of its hierarchies, encourages the belief that – because they have endured for so long – they will continue to endure whatever is slung at them, whilst authoritarian hierarchies prompt the ‘Nuremberg defence’;
(vi) the almost absurd number of bureaucratic processes associated with the administration of the Church encourages the authorities to believe that they are ‘insured’ because ‘process’ has been followed;
(vii) the existence of Ecclesiastical Insurance and a large reserve fund (now in excess of £9.3 billion) also encourages complacency: if mistakes are made these seemingly vast reserves can be tapped; and
(viii) as there is no unitary ‘Church of England’, only a mass of tiny corporations, often working in relative isolation from each other, of which the Church is an agglomeration, blame can be: (a) directed at specific, and often helpless, corporations if a scapegoat is required; or (b) diffused amongst a multiplicity of corporations.
All of these factors engender ‘moral hazard’ and varying degrees of impunity and/or indifference to wrongdoing.
Also, I note that whilst other denominations are far from perfect, the two denominations in the UK which have been most susceptible to scandal in recent years have been the Roman Catholic Church, with its own parallel legal system and canon law, and the Church of England (which inherited the legal structures and canon law of the RCC at the Reformation, and merely glossed that inheritance).
Both denominations may suffer from the perception that they are effectively a state within a state. They also have financial buffers. The disestablished churches in Ireland and Wales, and the Church of Scotland (which effectively abolished the old canon law in 1560-92, and whose basic systems of internal governance – the presbytery and kirk session – are overwhelmingly lay) were also largely disendowed. Not only can they not insulate themselves from the rest of society by applying their own legal processes akin to those of the RCC or CofE, they cannot really afford to do so.
I suspect that if the Church were not able to hide behind its legal system or if it did not have so much money, then there *might* be less of this poor behaviour. I was interested to read recently that, contrary to the public perception, ‘smart motorways’ are generally safer than other major roads precisely because they are monitored closely, and because there is no safety zone in the form of a hard shoulder. If the Church were to lose its establishment privileges, and its capital (which I have argued elsewhere should be put into a national fund to retain parish churches for public benefit and continuing worship), what the famous US court of appeals judge and jurist Richard Posner has called the ‘cost of predation’ would become too high relative to the margin of safety provided by the existing cash reserves.
Many thanks. The problem with the clerical nomenklatura is that they know that they are the fat that is ripe for the cutting in an increasingly lean institution. They know that they are usually adding little value. They know that they are working for an organisation – the diocese – that is nine tenths useless, and that the costs of it are a burden on the parishes. They know that the Church would probably benefit from the abolition of the dioceses, whatever else they tell themselves. They know that the real work is done in the parishes and that their jobs are mostly pointless. They know that they are a protective camarilla around their bishops. They know that the suppression of these self-evident truths is imperative if they are to be kept in their pay and rations, and if they are to secure advancement.
Or, as Upton Sinclair noted famously: ‘it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.’
Few things in religious life are so odious as a priest on the make. Those on the make are often to be found in diocesan bureaucracies and in the middle management layer: the springboard to preferment.
I have commented before that I had precious little support from stipendiary clergy in my troubles. But really quite a lot from those who have retired! I never thought it was a coincidence. I can understand the fear that abandoned me up the creek, but really it’s disgraceful. And the thought that Bishop’s rule by fear is intensely disturbing.
I didn’t put that apostrophe in! Spell checker!
The Bishop of London has issued an Ad Clerum (statement circulated to clergy) re. the Fr. Alan Gibson tragedy. https://www.london.anglican.org/articles/ad-clerum-from-the-bishop-of-london-fr-alan-griffin/
There will be an ‘independent’ investigation, but conducted by the National Church so not actually independent. And it’s to look into ‘any’ failings, as if there’s a possibility no one from the diocese was at fault. She’d have done much better to say ‘what went wrong, and why’.
She does say more about the meeting and the Two Cities Report, which doesn’t quite tally with the coroner’s report.
Thank you. Another perceptive piece which connects with the experience of many clergy, I suspect. The tipping point when the probing or critical question asked in committee is seen as unhelpful/regrettable often comes quickly and without warning. It’s so much easier when that happens to return to pastoral matters in the parish as a way of escaping the pressures of asking the hard questions.
Well done Margaret. Great stuff. Lovely attitude. You join the blind man of John 9 who was put out of the synagogue for his straight talking. I would rather be outside and seeing like him than inside and blind like them. The writer to the Hebrews also encouraged his readers to join Jesus in suffering outside the camp. There are hidden perks to being ousted, incidentally: it gives one some enemies to practice loving, obeying Jesus’ command to do so, and an opportunity to apply 1 Thessalonians 5:18 too – give thanks whatever happens.
I recall a favourite story of mine, about a Christian lady whose cancer was so severe that she was told she needed to go into the terminal ward. “Oh good,” she replied, “there will be people in there who are low and depressed and it will give me the opportunity to cheer them up.” You can’t defeat a person like that. I love it.
Do drop in for a coffee if you ever near Woking. Best wishes, David
David: That reminds me of when my late wife was relocated to a different isolation ward, in that case due to the Norovirus infection which was plaguing hospitals a few years ago. None of the bedside radios and televisions worked in this ward and there was an air of gloom. This turned to general merriment when I tried to set up a portable television, getting no signal, and someone holding an aerial out of the window. We had to give that up, but my wife started some community singing and they all joined in!
My godmother lived in Old Woking and was a teacher there, but that is now very long ago.
Thanks Rowland. Good to bring some cheer into a gloomy ward. Therapeutic even.
There has long been a sinister side to what might be called ‘negative patronage’, or the blocking of people for appointments in the C of E. I can recall 3 examples told me by the people concerned:
A curate (A) had endured three years in his first post with a vicar whom he found very difficult. Having served his term, he applied for chaplaincy in the Army – what he had felt to be his vocation from the start. The bishop objected, saying that if the curate did not take a second post in the diocese he would put him on the clergy blacklist and he would never get another post. A gave in and moved to the parish the bishop chose. The bishop then appointed the difficult vicar from his first curacy to be his boss in the second. When I met A again years later he was a bitter and disillusioned man.
A Cambridge chaplain, B, managed appointments to a number of parishes his college had patronage of. B told me of a number of occasions where they had made an appointment, only to be phoned by a bishop objecting that the appointee was on the clergy blacklist. B would then enquire what was the reason for the blacklisting, usually to be told it was confidential. HIs practice was to continue with the appointment unless he was given a valid reason why the candidate wasn’t suitable – but the bishops’ response was usually a very angry one. Some even shouted at him.
I had a friend, C, who was on the committee considering candidates to be the new bishop of her diocese. These ‘vacancy in see’ committees are composed of representatives from the local diocese and from the central Church. The local reps mentioned a senior clergyman (D) of a neighbouring diocese they thought would be a good bishop for them. The central Church members shook their heads. Unfortunately the senior clergyman was in very poor health, they said, and would be unable to serve. The committee duly appointed another man. Later they discovered there was nothing wrong with the Dean’s health. They never found out why his appointment to a bishopric had been blocked, nor why such underhand methods had been used.
All these cases show a sinister side to the Church which, to my knowledge, has been entrenched for decades. My guess is that it might be centuries. We are told there is no longer a secret blacklist, but the same methods of lies and innuendos are still being employed.
Sorry not really connected to this piece but I remember someone from a previous article asking/speaking of their experience of spiritual abuse and how it was dealt with and defined.
This is the update from the NSSG that says that they have now arrived at definitions of spiritual abuse and are hoping to implement procedures in the Autumn. I do wonder if the subjects of the case studies they used were consulted.
https://www.churchofengland.org/safeguarding/safeguarding-news-and-releases/update-june-national-safeguarding-steering-group-nssg