by Anon
My experience of abuse by a member of clergy is ongoing. Like many in my position, I was not fully aware of the severity until a critical point was reached: a single point in time, which denotated explosive chain reactions, revelations, and confrontations. In the immediate aftermath—dazed, air still shimmering with fallout—I considered why the word victim didn’t resonate with me, but the word survivor did.
Was my discomfort due to the fact that victim can imply a lack of agency? Or because the word maintains a link to the abuser? No, I decided. It’s the inert state that troubles me: the sense that a victim is the result of a finite series of actions. The implication that this status is permanent and cannot be altered further. The premise that the identification of a victim and a perpetrator means justice has been served. The assumption that a victim continues to live without any expenditure of effort or energy, floating like wreckage upon the waves: that there are no aching muscles or gasping breaths, no frantic treading of water. The active and continuing nature of the word survivor seemed preferable to any of this.
Survival is work. It is work without any tea breaks or days off. Abuse doesn’t magically stop once a report is made; it often intensifies after the survivor attempts to sever contact with the abuser. The entire process by which one reports abuse is inherently traumatic. Physical, psychological, spiritual, and financial effects are not resolved by filing a safeguarding report. When people talk about survivors, often they are speaking about people who must actively choose to survive every single day, hour, minute. Struggling with the effects of trauma is often perceived as weakness. I have heard clergy speak with discomfort about the safeguarding training they had to undergo, as if they were above contemplating non-abstract crimes and abuse. They don’t want to think about such concrete things, about the wickedness human beings are capable of committing. Neither do survivors, but survivors have no choice in the matter.
Abuse reverberates; it ripples, sending shockwaves backwards and forwards in time. It rips through past, present, and future. The damage is irrevocable and irreparable. Memories become tainted by new information. The present is an unbearable landscape of bureaucracy and sadness, an endless battle stretching into the distance. Hope is stripped from the future. When the Church delays the outcome of a case, when it deliberately lets a case stagnate, when it blocks paths to justice and resolution, there is no discernible future.
How do you measure a life in limbo? How do you quantify time irretrievable? The loss of opportunities, the stagnation of career or education? The isolation, the exhaustion, the shame, the fear? The absence of smiles, of joy, of dreams, of the desire to dream? The insomniac nights, or the ones filled with nightmares – which weigh heavier on the scales of torment? Is it worse to dream, unwillingly, of my abuser, or to lie awake, unwillingly, yearning for justice from a Church whose accountability to survivors is lacking? From a Church that would prefer I didn’t exist?
The act of reporting abuse by a clergy member represents a deed of tremendous faith in the Church—and, by extension, in the safeguarding policies and machinery in place (ostensibly) to protect parishioners. Once a report is made, a special relationship exists between the Church and the survivor. In some sense, a fiduciary duty is created. Reporting abuse entails a great deal of risk, especially when one lives with one’s abuser or is otherwise vulnerable. A survivor may be putting their life on the line to file a safeguarding report. This amount of trust and risk must be met with the highest standards of care and respect.
What should that standard of care look like? At the very least, it must include adhering to Anglican safeguarding policies as they are written.
As I agonised over reporting my abuser, I read every scrap of information on the safeguarding website for the Church of England. I read every policy, procedure, and guideline applicable to my situation, and many that were not. (This is part of the immense unpaid work a survivor must do.) My decision to file a safeguarding allegation was predicated on this information. I noted how a survivor was required to be supported throughout the process, and what other avenues were open to me for counselling and help. I educated myself about safeguarding agreements, clergy disciplinary measures, and the roles various individuals were meant to play in relation to the complainant and the recipient.
I trusted with my whole heart that this process would be followed.
What happened (and is happening) instead continues to shock me. Relying on written safeguarding policies was a grave mistake, as these have not been followed. I have learned that even a case of recent abuse with copious evidence can be handled horrifically by the Church. After writing a detailed account of the abuse I suffered at the hands of a clergy member, I now must continually document the neglect, delay, and abuse committed by those involved with the safeguarding case—people I trusted to protect me and others. Every failure to act, every delay, every obstacle feels like a beating. This is nothing less than institutional violence. And, perhaps more importantly, it entails work. Exhausting, emotionally draining, unpaid work. This, too, is the work of surviving.
It is hard to think of a single example in all of history when perpetrators of oppression successfully carried out a reformation of their own behaviour—or even tried. Discussions of institutional accountability often include the question, “Who watches the watchmen?” The gist is that those who police are fallible and must themselves be policed. Accordingly, the February 2025 general synod of the Church of England rejected an independent safeguarding structure. So, who is watching the watchmen? Survivors. Survivors are the ones keeping the Church accountable. The very people who have been doubted and ostracised are the ones testing the rickety scaffolding of Anglican safeguarding policies and exposing the faults. But survivors do this at their own risk. Such risk is not only psychological. John 3.20 states, “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” Do not underestimate what a person will do to avoid exposure. There are survivors who have good reasons to fear for their lives.
In examining the Bible for passages about honesty and truth, I ran into problems. I am neither a pastor nor a theologian, but it became painfully obvious that one must be very cautious in interpreting the word “truth” in the New Testament. Most if not all references pertain to Christ, or to the specific truth of the Gospel. Of course, Scripture condemns deceit and preaches honesty, but misappropriating these references to truth would bring no comfort; it is hard to fool oneself when one knows better.
I did realise two things while considering Scripture and the voices of survivors. First, survivors of clergy abuse carry within themselves a great truth—a truth much greater than blood and bone. They bear the trauma of betrayal by a Church they (may) love, by clergy they trusted, by a system they believed, and seemingly by God. They carry this burden inside of them and continue to bear witness to truth—if not through words, then through their continued existence in the face of adversity. Second, remaining silent is torture for a survivor who feels compelled to speak. For those who feel the prick of obligation, what they have endured and continue to endure must see the light of day. The survivors who report and who speak represent innumerable survivors who cannot. Voices for the voiceless.
The delays and failures of the Church in handling safeguarding reports and in providing support for survivors are shameful enough. On top of this, survivors are often ordered to remain silent, while issuing no such directive to the (alleged) perpetrator. Furthermore, there is no reward for good behaviour; survivors are given no additional respect for complying with gag orders. There is merely more neglect, delay, and covering-up. I am now convinced that there is no “perfect victim” of clergy abuse. There exists no model for a mythical survivor who is instantly believed and supported by the Church of England. The notion of a “perfect victim” is damaging regardless, but its complete absence here is noteworthy. It is more appropriate to view survivors of clergy abuse as whistleblowers. It was only within this framework that I could begin to comprehend why the Church treats survivors as cruelly as it does and why the Church would seek to silence survivors’ voices.
There are days, and nights, when I feel the truth in every heartbeat; its sheer power threatens daily to undo every joint and sinew in my body. I do not speak for all survivors, but I know that this great and horrifying reality cannot dwell quietly within me for the rest of my days. We cannot be friends, or even bitter roommates, in this temple. Truth be told, and quickly.
An excellent written item! Thanks.
Sincere believers feel dreadful internal conflict when they eventually challenge bullies and abusers in the institutional Church. The naive Christian victim, unfamiliar with diocesan cover ups, often finds over time that there are satanically wicked strategies employed against them.
The Church relishes any opportunity to eject or cold shoulder whistleblowers, witnesses, victims. Bishops and senior staff have often had years or decades of experience of covering up bullying-harasment-abuse-exploitation-discrimination. No tactic seems to be off limits when it comes to protecting clerical abusers-bullies. That is my suspicion.
Within business and public sector jobs certain offences almost always result in a sacking. But does anyone in the Anglican Church (especially bishops and senior clergy) ever get sacked for anything? Until we see bishops sacked, plus other senior Anglicans who cover up bullying and abuse, there can alas never be any real progress.
Anglicanism effectively operates like the Post Office before Alan Bates lifted the lid on the Horizon scandal. Is that why so many of our thuggish Anglican bishops possibly have zero appetite for independent safeguarding? Lots of ill-treated Anglicans leave. Others stay as communicants but minimise their time or money commitment to the denomination.
A looming crisis faces Anglicanism and the ill-treatment of Church members is having major consequences. Victims are becoming more outspoken and bold, in the face of clay-footed leadership incompetence and immorality on the part of know-all bishops.
The BBC in Belfast could try a story series entitled: ‘The reign of Bishop Clay-foot of the Down and Out Diocese’. St Anne’s Anglican Cathedral in Belfast, with its £850,000 steel spire, might be a great location.
The BBC’s story line could be partly based around a recent revival at Saint Brendan’s Church in Belfast, as reported by ‘Olive Tree Media’ in this YouTube film posted 30.1.22: ‘Karl Faase interviews Joe Turner for Jesus the Game Changer Season 2’.
Funny how this film, by an outside company, remains available. But is what it contains hard to reconcile with content in the website or Facebook pages of St Brendan’s Church?
Can maladministration cases by Distinguished Public Servants be referred to the Parliamentary Commissioner?
The Ombudsman equivalent, in the case of misbehaving bishops, might seem to be the Archbishop. But in reality do many victims note how bishops are a law unto themselves, because they seem to have absolute authority and are not scrutinised by the CEO (Archbishop) as would happen in countless other business or public sector groups?
A Deuteronomy principle, about 2-3 witnesses having validity, informs normal UK law and the way the public sector or businesses function. Paradoxically, is Anglicanism one of the fe UK zones where this principle often never applies?
I saw an ex-Church moderator, a professor, a senior teacher and a medic red flag concern about New Wine student abuse. But the Anglican Church happily brushed things under the carpet. This kind of repeated folly underlies countless scandals destroying Anglicanism.
It will continue to do so until Independent Safeguarding exposes scandal concealers (like Bishop David McClay of the Church of Ireland’s Down and Dromore Diocese). A trail of hidden abuse, rape, bullying or harassment crops up in repeated Anglican scandals.
But was the Council set up by Parliament? (Amidst Kansas City hype and the women clergy scare . . .)
A very powerful piece summarising the situation for many victim/survivors. Thank you. I am glad you have highlighted that this remains the current situation in spite of the many utterances by Church hierarchy desperately trying to get the public to believe that things have changed. Survivors know they have not. I am also glad you pointed out that processes are not being followed. This is vital because when the Church makes changes, pretending that this will benefit survivors, survivors understand it will make no difference, given that mandatory processes are either simply ignored or directly acted against. The fact that these people are the ones introducing policies which are supposed to make safeguarding independent is worse than a joke. If they simply followed processes correctly there would be no need for them to do so. The fact that they repeatedly fail to follow there own policies and processes show they cannot be trusted to choose truly independent systems. Their sacking of ISB members by the hierarchy when they realised that Steve Reeves and Jasvinder Sanghera really were acting independently show they have no intention of truly independent oversight. If the Church really wanted independent oversight they would have extended the contracts of Jasvinder and Steve, added more personnel and co-operated on cases. To have told the survivor advocate that they were too focussed on survivors tells you everything you need to know. At best survivors are to be ignored, at worst bullied into silence. How long will the government tolerate and condone the situation? The establishment does not seem willing to have a public inquiry for adult survivors. Perhaps they fear the findings after iicsa.
Although never an actual Anglican (provided you don’t count an Anglican baptism as a definitive label) and grew up as a Congregationalist, I have been deeply involved with Dioceses and Chaplaincy/parish for over 30 years. That has given me a deep insight into what really goes on out of sight. The administrative apparatus is permanently in self-protective mode and protecting priests etc: takes priority over the faithful. The same applies with the Catholics – I’ve heard plenty on that side of the fence as well. The difference between the U.K. and France is that, over there, there is a law that requires protection of a “person in danger” and a French Bishop has been taken before a Court having posted a paedophile priest to a far-away Parish without any warning of his proclivities. The significance of my inbuilt Congregationalism is that, in that Church as well the URC, probably the Baptists and the ERF/EPUF in France, all Church Members are of equal value. You have more responsibilities as a Minister, Deacon, Elder but you are not superior.
Exactly! Especially in some evangelical Anglican groups, the leaders grasp an absolute or imaginary divine authority, so that anyone red-flagging abuse, bullying, harassment is just dismissed all too easily as “a troublemaker”. A distant diocese facilitates all kinds of local Church cover ups.
Agreed. But bishops and dioceses will only protect priests as long as it is convenient for them to do so. Priests get bullied and abused too.
The real problem is that the C of E’s default position, in many cases, is to side with the most powerful person involved in a situation, regardless of the rights and wrongs of it. In my view that’s the C of E’s greatest sin.
Yes! Many older UK people (say over the age of 50) grew up within a culture of deference towards almost every form of authority. We have now seen this change radically in each recent decade across multiple organisations.
In general it has been a wonderful change, although the pendulum may have swung too far in some life areas (e.g. police/law). But the Church often maintains this antiquated ‘Bishop-and only Bishop-knows best’ facade.
There is one decisive logical step, which must inevitably flow from your line of argument. Where a Bishop ignores (and/or cynically covers up) serious abuse of power/position, they need to be retired off ASAP.
A non-independent, and Church (or Diocese) controlled body, will have every good reason to prolong and defer matters which need radically immediate attention.
A group of business and professional people within the Down and Dromore Diocese (by Belfast) saw Bishop David McClay (when he was Archdeacon) cynically fail to deal with savage student ill-treatment.
David McClay ignored or downplayed senior professional witnesses who were well placed to see and interpret the clearest evidence of vile student abuse.
Was protecting a colleague/friend far more important than obeying national law and church rules, or biblical principles of natural justice? That’s a question David McClay should be forced to answer.
I have red-flagged the problem to past and current All-Ireland Primates, but they have failed to launch any formal inquiry into very clear signs of serious misconduct by David McClay.
Multiple locals have referred me to concerns about further potential misconduct surrounding the mysterious disappearance of yet another former New Wine course student from the Diocese of Down and Dromore.
A Jan 30 2022 posted YouTube film by Olive Tree Media celebrates revival and growth under the ministry of the former student: ‘Karl Faase interviews Joe Turner for Jesus the Game Changer Season 2’.
But locals noted the acute disappearance of Joe Turner from the parish some considerable time ago. Also, there was a very odd mass deletion of the parish Facebook material at St Brendan’s Church in Belfast.
The problem with senior clerical misconduct in Down and Dromore Diocese is not new. BBC and the media, plus the courts, have exposed a massive child abuse cover up hidden for almost 50 years.
It involved the late Canon W G Neely, who was secretively sent to Tipperary from Belfast. Why did David McClay not formally name Neely as an abuser when commenting on this matter after it was finally exposed?
There is compelling evidence of Bishop David McClay (BISHOP DARVO CLAY-FOOT) not respecting biblical principles of natural justice or protecting innocent people against ill-treatment.
BISHOP DARVO CLAY-FOOT should be compelled to resign before his immorality and leadership incompetence potentially endanger yet more innocent people.
David McClay’s failure to address bullying and harassment caused a professor, a senior teacher, a retired medic and a businessman to leave the diocese or minimise contact.
I saw this totally avoidable tragedy evolve as a result of incompetence from BISHOP DARVO CLAY-FOOT. Yet CLAY-FOOT is an ex-New Wine leader who raves about “leadership training” courses……..
Is the-‘Spirit of Mike Pilavachi MBE’-alive and well in Belfast? There is ample evidence of New Wine students in Ireland coming to harm within the Anglican Church in Ireland. But BISHOP DARVO CLAYFOOT seems to have zero appetite for confessing to this problem, or apologising to victims of savage ill-treatment.
Unfortunately parts of the upper echelons of the URC practice shunning, ostracism, ignoring, and definitely behave like the dog collar confers a great status upon them.
It’s not everyone obvs, and some ministers are great. But some employ all the Anglican tricks of hierarchy and see themselves as far above us mere mortals.
Nothing can match the pain and truth of this blog. Its torturous, vivid description make it frustrating to read because we all want to help and put this constant anguish away from the suffererer and yet have no means of so doing.
The pain of our helplessness is almost more than we can bear. The cruelty of the Church of England does not stop there. For those who have been falsely accused it goes on and on and nobody cares. Nobody cares because the Church protects itself by not allowing any form of process of appeal against a judgement made. A judgement made by people with no legal training just personal opinion. So the accused must live out the rest of their life under the heavy cloud of the accusation with no hope of receiving any sort of justice.
Remember all of you Father Alan Griffin. There are others similarly treated but are managing to struggle for survival. Father Alan was the martyr for them all.
Dear Father Alan Griffin RIP
It is not just the lack of ‘independent’ assessment. The clique or chums, who cover up savagery, knowing that detection is nigh on impossible within a “closed” Church system, should face a penalty which reflects both the damage done to to victims and also the low pick up of Anglican Church member ill-treatment.
The collapse of high profile Anglican Church cover ups should be celebrated, and shouted about from the roof tops. Why is Cottrell being allowed to stay a second longer in post?
Poetry Anon – Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts so eloquently and open up a window for folk to peer through. The safeguarding circus 🎪 within the church is an absolute disgrace. I cant understand why there are so few people in senior positions not reaching out in a spirit that would be pleasing to the Christ they purport to follow.
The principle from Deuteronomy onwards, and into our NT, is letting the witness evidence of 2-3 speak. Have Anglican Bishops and Archbishops conveniently disregarded this principle countless times?
Thank you for writing this post. It beautifully expresses how I’ve felt for the last 15 years of my life. I have only had to experience racist verbal abuse and character defamation, but it still broke me. The mistreatment only intensifies once you complain. I left the church (C of E), thinking I was now free.
A few years ago, I stupidly accepted a job at a Christian charity (with unapologetic Soul Survivor links) only for everything I thought I escaped to follow me there. They exhibited exactly the same behaviours as my former church. Their charitable status shields them from any scrutiny. Reading blog posts like this helps me to heal.
The situation could be changing for the better. Let’s not give up hope. Your final point, on charitable status, is a very fair one. But might charitable status for churches be something the charity commission start to probe at more, as we see ever more abuse and embezzlement issues?