I have refrained from commenting on Roman Catholic issues to do with power abuse up till now. This is partly because I do not want to sound like a critical outsider taking aim at another church body. My reason now for wanting to refer to the Pope’s recent pronouncements on sexual abuse is to suggest that his recent statement is illustrating some fundamental failures of understanding as to how to deal with scandal. This is a problem for the whole Church, including the Church of England. Looking at what the Pope has said may help us to see our own Anglican problems a little clearer.

The recent 2000-word pronouncement about child sexual abuse from the Vatican seems to say, at first reading, all the right things. It lays blame on corrupt priests for taking advantage of the vulnerable and asks for prayers and fasting by the whole church for these ‘atrocities’. It sees the whole thing as a grievous stain on the Church.

The theologian Richard Sipe was a Catholic researcher who studied celibacy among Catholic priests in America and died quite recently. I have one of his books at home (I am away at present) and one of the striking claims he made which stuck in my memory was that only half the Catholic priests in his country were in fact celibate. To put it another way 50% of American Catholic priests are sexually active. I do not recall how this sexuality is normally expressed but one is reminded of the two French priests and their ‘arrangements’ in the pre-war comic French novel, Clochemerle. Each of the priests in the story had a compliant female housekeeper but they knew that their activities in bed were sinful. In the novel we hear the ways they arranged to confess to each other and receive absolution. This process involved each of them pedalling hard 20 km to each other’s village and picking up a penitence after a brief recital of their ‘delinquency’. The penitence required became ever more truncated and peremptory. This went on over several years. A sexually active priest is, by definition, having to carry out his activities in secret and this will frequently compromise any potential honesty and mutuality in the relationship. From the outside there may often appear to be a damaging element of control involved. A priest’s ‘lover’, male or female, will frequently end up damaged in the medium to long term.

A Catholic priest may of course act out his sexuality in ways that include criminal acts against children and young people. The law is clear that such relationships are not tolerated in any modern society. The law of the Catholic church, because all sexual activity by a priest is regarded as sin, may be less explicit in its utter revulsion for crimes against children. The Clochmerle relationships may or may not have had an abusive element in them but they were clearly far from being as culpable and damaging as the abuse of a child. Behind the prohibition of any sexual activity for a priest is the vexed issue of compulsory celibacy. This institution clearly does not serve the Church well. Nevertheless, the Church of Rome has shown itself unwilling to address the issue. In theory the Church expects all its clergy to control sexual longing. This enables it to present the priestly caste as somehow pure and holy, being removed from and above the distractions of carnal lust. Because this ideal is failing 50% of the time, the Church is in fact being deeply damaged in several ways. It is damaged by the creation of numerous victims, such as the 1000 children identified in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report. It is damaged because clergy are forced into secretive liaisons that force many of them into a permanent state of hypocrisy. One of the most telling aspects of the Pennsylvania Report was the suggestion that cover-ups of the worst abuses were made possible because Catholic bishops in informal relationships felt unable to discipline their child-abusing priests because the latter had the power to blackmail them for their own sexual compromises.

I cannot tell the Pope what to do, as the task of cleaning up the Church of Rome is vast. Clearly a start has to be made in deciding what should be realistically asked of a young priest in terms of dealing with his sexual side. One way forward could be to allow priests to marry. The hypocrisy of expecting ‘purity’ from all priests can never completely work as it is in conflict with the normal functioning of human nature. Some may succeed following the path of celibacy but many will not. There is also always going to be a high cost that the institution has to pay each time a scandal emerges. The age of the Internet means that these scandals can never be easily be covered up in the future.

The Anglican Church in dealing with its own scandals has in some ways behaved like the Church of Rome in its desire to protect itself. For the Vatican the supposed ‘purity’ of priests and thus the blameless institution they serve, seems to have been an overarching preoccupation. This approach, resulting in secrecy and rampant hypocrisy, has had little regard for those who inevitably have been damaged by the system of celibacy, particularly the under-age targets of priestly desire. For some Anglican leaders there seems to be a preoccupation with preserving not purity, but the assets of the organisation. On many occasions when a victim of abuse approaches the centre he/she is pushed away, sometimes brutally, because it is assumed that they are only interested in financial compensation. From my own dealings with victims this is generally not the case. Survivors would like the courtesy of being heard, having letters answered and generally being allowed a voice. This ‘othering’ of abuse victims by bishops and senior officials is unbelievably cruel behaviour when applied to someone who has already had their life ruined by the original abuser. The way that Anglican and Vatican authorities seem to react and think alike is because everything is seen only within the perspective of the institution and its interests. Commentators, such as I, can see the situation from other vantage points. Of course, the interests of the institution have to be weighed up and respected. But other perspectives are needed to obtain a rounded picture of what is really going on. To some of these, church authorities seem sometimes to be deaf and blind. First, we have the legitimate and just rights of survivors. If these are not listened to then the central mission statement of any church is trampled under-foot. How can any church put up with a situation where someone ‘causes one of these little ones to sin’? We all know how the text continues. When the Church, the guardian of morality, is seen to fail one of these ‘little ones’ it is judged very harshly by the wider public. The public relations impact of the recent child abuse scandals is wreaking enormous damage on both church bodies. The man on the Clapham omnibus is fast concluding that all churches are unsafe, even dangerous, places for children and young people. However good safeguarding practices are being put into place at present, failure to deal with past crimes will negate all the current good work.

In the past week social media has recorded the story of a survivor who was told by a Church of England clergyman to go back under a stone and that he had probably enjoyed his abuse. I normally double-check stories of this kind, but this report seems to chime in with the continuing revelation of how some senior clergy seemed to be uncaring and indifferent to the stories of survivors who disclose to them. The Smyth story has continued to reveal names of individuals who put the reputation of the Iwerne network above the protection of vulnerable young people. When will the damaging stories about the Church of England and the Catholic Church stop? They will stop when there is a change of mindset. The mindset has to include the ability to embrace the full reality of the scandals so that the protection of the institution is never the only or even the main consideration. Church leaders must learn to see the whole picture. This will always involve acknowledging the pain of victims as well as the increasing righteous anger of all who witness what is going on. The Church of Rome and the Church of England seem to struggle in their ability to see what is there in front of them, so that the health of both bodies is profoundly damaged.

One of the major changes that has taken place in our lifetime is the free availability of information through the internet. There are very few people who avoid completely traces of their lives appearing somewhere online. It is also possible to research one’s own family tree without ever leaving one’s home. All this information means that it is very hard for negative/positive facts about people’s lives to be completely hidden. In spite of data protection laws and all the other safeguards which try to stop too much private information circulating, there is an enormous of material about the past available at the click of a button.

This new 21st-century era of readily accessible facts means that institutions need to operate in a new way. If any group wishes to hide evidence of wrong-doing in the past they need to take into account that there are countless press records available on the Net. When a public figure makes a statement about some past event, a check can be quickly made to see if what is said is corroborated by contemporary press accounts. I can give a live example of a serious discrepancy between the recent public declaration of The Titus Trustees about the death of John Smyth and what is revealed by a newspaper cutting. One of the comments to my post about John Smyth drew attention to a story written by Anne Atkins, the broadcaster and columnist for the Daily Telegraph. In a column dated October 29th 2012, at the time of the Savile scandal, Anne revealed her discomfort at hearing about the case of abuse against another individual and her unwillingness to do anything about it. She then went on to mention knowing about John Smyth (not mentioned by name in the article but clearly identifiable) and his abusive activities in the garden shed at Winchester. He was apparently a family friend and she had known him since she was a child. Some of Anne’s friends were due to go out to see Smyth in South Africa but Anne kept her mouth shut about his behaviour as she did not want to be accused of ‘malicious gossip’. The whole way the story is told implies that many people in Anne’s social circles also knew the facts about his abusive behaviour in both England and Africa. She does not indicate that it was in any way secret information at the time. Indeed, it is hard to imagine how even a hint of this story would have reached her column if Anne had ever thought it had to be kept under wraps. She tells the story as though she had learnt the details soon after 1982 when the Ruston report was produced. She and others also knew about the cloud that was attached to Smyth over the subsequent Zimbabwe death. We may conclude that among the circles of well-connected evangelicals, of which Anne is one, the Smyth story was well known. It was embarrassment, not secrecy that prevented Anne sharing her knowledge to these other friends who were off to see Smyth in South Africa. How are we to square up this publicly available information from 2012 with the claim that the Titus Trustees were only informed of the facts of Smyth’s crimes in 2014? All the Trustees both of the Iwerne Trust and its successor, the Titus Trust were prominent members of exactly the same social and church circles as Anne Atkins and her family. It stretches credulity to think that the revelations of 2014 could have been fresh news to such a prominent group of supporters of the Iwerne camps.

One person, here a humble blogger, can, by consulting the internet locate awkward facts which call into question the veracity of statements being made by official bodies. I am not going to push this point any further. I just hope that this discrepancy about when different individuals learnt the facts of Smyth’s behaviour will be resolved by some future enquiry. The ease through which this discrepancy was uncovered suggests that anyone making statements to the Press need to take far more care that their claims will not be undermined by an act of checking the internet to see if they are credible. The Titus Trustees statement of the 13 August has already made several survivors extremely distressed and angry as they know it is based on a falsehood. They see it as an attempt to distance the Trust from any responsibility. So how should the Church or a Trust behave when faced with credible information of past abuses?

At the IICSA hearing in March we heard that one way of dealing with the past abuses is to physically destroy files. The bonfire in the Chichester Deanery garden remains a vivid metaphor of the way that some parts of the Church have attempted to deal with awkward past episodes. The Deanery bonfire took place in 1999. Somehow one feels that date symbolises a 20th century approach to the record-keeping of past infamy. In the present century one looks for professional record keeping with the realisation that it is seldom possible to destroy evidence of the past when so much information is stored on the internet and in people’s memories. The truth now has a habit of coming out even when there are determined attempts to eliminate it.

Of the all advantages given by the internet to those who pursue justice and accountability in the church is the gift of networking. In the past many survivors were kept in isolation from one another. This was help to the authorities who were faced with claims. The authorities could see the wider picture, but the enforced isolation of each abused individual deprived them of any real clout. It is not difficult to manipulate or intimidate one person on their own. Now the internet has made this ‘divide and rule’ procedure far more difficult to implement. Survivors are finding each on Facebook, Twitter and through blogs such as this one. Joining together for mutual support gives survivors real power. There is nothing so powerful as a group which comes together with a common cause and a common purpose. I myself am witnessing the extraordinary strength and stamina of some of these survivors, especially when they cooperate and work together. It is a privilege to know some of them.

If the Church is to develop a strategy for the 21st-century in dealing with the legacy of abuse, then it needs to change its tactics. There is no room anymore for secrecy and trying to hold back information through, for example, confidential agreements. It is no longer going to be so easy to intimidate the survivors who have found each other on the internet. Of course, they will be encouraging each other, sharing stories and notes. It is no longer realistic for any group, whether the Titus Trust or the Church of England to expect that future scandals can be hidden. What is the alternative strategy for the Church? The alternative is to acknowledge at an early stage what are the facts and then be prepared to deal with them in an open and transparent way.

Transparency, openness and repentance are all gospel values. The problem for the Churches is that they are also values that are likely to be incredibly expensive in financial terms. It is however hard to see realistically that the church has a future at all if it tries to manage the terrible legacy of past abuses using other dishonest or deceitful methods. As I write this I have in mind the picture of Inspector Murdock interviewing the former Bishop of Chichester in the Ball case. Although daytime, the curtains in the Bishop’s study were pulled shut as part of an attempted ruse which was supposed to trap the Inspector and undermine his case against Ball. The Church has for too long pulled the curtains shut in dealing with abuse cases. It needs to pull them back and deal with them with the full light of day. Light, transparency and loving respect for those who have been harmed are the only way forward. Somehow the 21st century internet age makes it hard to see how there are any realistic alternatives.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2220693/I-havent-handed-sex-offender-police–I-told-confidence-A-leading-agony-aunt-makes-explosive-confession.html

John Smyth QC, the notorious administer of cruel seemingly pointless beatings to up to 80 young men in England and Africa has died. The event leaves behind numerous questions as well a cohort of traumatised men who are still trying to come to terms with what happened to them when many were still children. The questions that are being asked need answers, particularly as the case will not now be examined in an English court of law. The church itself and the general public have a right to know how these crimes happened and what is going to be done to stop such things in the future.

The facts of John Smyth’s malign influence in and around the Iwerne Camps between 1978 and 1982 have been well covered in the Press and elsewhere. I do not propose to repeat this information. Rather I want to highlight some issues that are raised by the death of Smyth which may be of interest to my readers. In the first place there has been some discussion about the responsibility of the Church of England for the Smyth scandals. Some commentators have tried to distance the national Church from the Iwerne camps in which Smyth played a major role as Chairman of the Trust. The claim is that the Iwerne (now Titus) Trust is a separate trust and the Church has had no direct involvement in the organisation. Several people elsewhere have pointed out that it would be a misnomer to describe the camps as anything other than Anglican. The founder was a Church of England clergyman, the Trustees have always been Anglican, and the vast majority of campers are Church of England boys from top public schools. Many if not most of the schools involved have an Anglican foundation, especially those founded in the 19th century. Even though the Trust has a separate legal identity to the Church, it is hard for most people to discern any clear water between the two. One person I was speaking to likened it to the relationship between Momentum and the Labour Party. They may be separate, but each organisation depends on the other in a symbiotic way. The Church of England has to take an interest as the Iwerne camps have played an important part in the spiritual formation of a considerable number of Church of England bishops as well as numerous clergy.

The Iwerne trustees (now called Titus) are of course not some isolated random group that were brought together for this one purpose. Iwerne camps started in the 30s and thus there have been networks of ex-campers and officers who know each other well. All the trustees had been campers themselves. Anyone who had taken part in one of the camps is for ever known as an Iwerne man. Networking of this kind of course goes on within any institution. These Iwerne alumni, clergy and lay, might be categorised as a sub-group of the evangelical wing of the Church of England. They have a special link to the evangelicals who are associated with the hard-line Calvinist group that is linked to Reform. These find their ‘head-quarters’ of St Helen’s Bishopsgate and All Souls Langham Place. Others Iwerne men are identified with the more charismatic flavour of evangelicalism which we find at HTB. All Iwerne men are noted for the way they carry their evangelical public-school values into the church. This involves the exercise of social power and using their networks to exercise influence on the church. The ‘exile’ of John Smyth to Africa required access to funds and also powerful individuals who could fix things. There were clearly enough prominent upper middle-class Evangelicals who could be called upon to put in place an establishment ‘plot’ as a way of burying a scandal. Something similar happened in the case of Peter Ball.

I am, through my blog contacts, picking up on a variety of other hints, some of which have already rehearsed by newspapers and other blogs. In the first place it is suggested that the Smyth scandal has been deliberately covered up for decades. Only an enquiry will show clearly who knew what and when. Among the facts I have ascertained is that at least two of the current Titus trustees knew about the abuses long before the re-emergence of the 1982 report in 2012. My source is suggesting that the current statement on the Titus Trustees website is totally false and misleading. They there claim that the facts of Smyth’s abuses were unknown to any of them before 2012. The original report was circulated to eight people. Though many of these have now died, there are more lines of continuity between the old Iwerne Trustees and the current Titus Trustees than have been admitted. The Smyth scandal is arguably more serious as the number of traumatised victims totals 80+. Not all of these 80 were Winchester College victims. Some suffered in Zimbabwe when he was sent, effectively a fugitive from British justice.

Another aspect of the Smyth affair that I wish to share with my readers is the witness of Mark Stibbe, a Iwerne survivor, in an interview he gave last year. He spoke of the way that as a fragile young man at Winchester College, he found himself under the thrall of Smyth. The bond between the two was cemented by the fact that Mark had felt abandoned and neglected by his own father. Smyth became the substitute father and thus Mark was always anxious to please him as well as do anything asked of him. At the same time as reading this account I was also reading a study by an eminent sociologist who has tried to indicate that ‘brain-washing’ is a myth. The statistic that was used by this sociology professor to make this point is that only 0.1 % of visitors to a Moonie camp were there a year later. The implication was that the vast majority of people are totally resistant to cult recruitment. Thinking of Mark Stibbe when reading this, I could see that this has to be nonsense. Even if we do not describe Smyth’s tricks as ‘brain-washing’ it is clear that otherwise intelligent and normal individuals like Stibbe are susceptible to what is effectively a cult-like environment if the vulnerabilities are present in them. Almost 100% of those earmarked by Smyth and groomed by his smooth words, those of a manipulative charismatic conman, submitted to his will. The failure to understand these issues of vulnerability, charisma and manipulation mean that a large part of the scholarly world is ill-equipped to help victims and survivors of abusive environments such as those created by Ball and Smyth. 0.1 % of the boys who were members of the evangelical Christian Forum at Winchester College at the dangerous period of Smyth’s activity might have produced one finger. This is a long way from the 20+ identified by Ruston who were caught up in the scandal and suffer still so grievously. Smyth can no longer face human justice but those who knew what was going on should be brought to account and soon. There is an urgency that the Church of England should not act only because the public demands it. Once again, we have a scandal that is too big to ignore. If it is ignored it will damage the church for generations to come.

One of the themes that comes up repeatedly in speaking about spiritual or sexual abuse is the theme of forgiveness. I have not hitherto tackled this topic head-on because I know that I cannot do it any justice in the thousand-word limit of my blog posts. I certainly would never want to suggest that a brief discussion could possibly embrace the huge complexity of the topic. What, for example, is required of a survivor to be able to say that they forgive their abuser? There are certainly no obvious or straightforward paths to be suggested as the correct way to get to this stage. I am not surprised that even after many years of support, some survivors do not reach this place of being able to forgive. Having heard some of the stories I cannot say that I find any blame in this situation. We live with the painful realisation that some abuse leaves behind a lifelong legacy which is so severe that not everyone comes through to the other end, a place of healing.

Let us acknowledge that forgiveness for these kinds of evils is an extremely costly achievement, if it is in fact ever found. This realisation that some survivors never completely heal should be held up against the way that church authorities seem sometimes very quick to forgive an abuser. It is as though the guardians of the Church use a different theology of forgiveness to push away or hide appalling and embarrassing events caused by one of their members. Once the abuser has been forgiven, the victim of the abuser then quickly becomes the enemy of the institution. He or she is regarded as someone who wishes to make trouble just because he calls out for proper justice. The mindset that wants to hand out quick forgiveness does not appear to have engaged with the appalling damage which has been done to an individual through abuse. We have recently seen several examples of bishops and archbishops who have pronounced institutional forgiveness for abusers. This offer of forgiveness seems to be made even before the traditional Christian path of contrition, remorse and repentance is explored. It makes it a completely different animal from the one that survivors spend decades struggling to find. One is costly and deeply painful; the other is cheap and superficial. Its superficiality is such that it resembles another Christian ‘virtue’, the need to be nice to people who are like us.

A cheapening of the practice of Christian forgiveness by institutional leaders is what I want to focus on today. When Archbishop David Hope in 2003 first covered up for Dean Waddington and his offences in Manchester against boys, there was no doubt a hope that the distance of time since the offences might successfully bury these crimes. Later in 2013 a critical report appeared about what had happened, but, by this time, the offender had died. That report was interestingly never published. One can surmise that the authorities hoped that without any document circulating, the incident of an abusive dean and a failure of oversight would be quickly forgotten. Perhaps it was thought that a combination of Christian forgiveness, niceness and fuzzy memories could heal the wound of decades of terrible abuse. A similar ‘see no evil’ approach infected the entire area of Sussex overseen by Bishop Wallace Benn. Forgiveness was freely handed out to offending clergy with few questions asked.

A report about John Smyth who abused boys in the name of a ‘manly’ Christianity was another that was hidden away. The report was originally circulated to a small group of senior evangelicals associated with the Iwerne camps. As the result of the report, Smyth was spirited out of the country to work his charisma in African schools and abuse further young people. Those in England who made this disappearing act to Zimbabwe happen no doubt believed that they were being forgiving. George Carey’s actions towards Peter Ball were also presumably felt to be acts of forgiveness and thus in some way virtuous. They were of course nothing of the sort. We, from the perspective of time, can recognise a case of emotional blackmail alongside an appalling failure of judgement here at the top levels of the Church of England.

I want to suggest that there are two kinds of forgiveness abroad in the Church of England at present. One is the costly kind which any victim or survivor of abuse finds hard to achieve. The other is a forgiveness handed out by leaders which has little cost. It is like the ‘comfort’ handed out to the brother who lacks clothes and food in James 2.15-16. The Christian who says ‘Go, I wish you well’ without doing anything practical to help is seen to be an example of faith with no deeds. This kind of toothless care can be compared with the frequent but vague promises of goodwill towards survivors. There seems no real understanding of what they have had to endure. Thus, there is little or no appreciation as to why the handing out of cheap forgiveness to abusers causes survivors so much additional pain. When bishops shield other bishops or clergy from accusations of abusive behaviour, no doubt they would claim that they are motivated by a Christian desire to forgive or provide for the abuser a second chance. This is, in fact, a debasement of forgiveness particularly when the motivation for offering it is to protect an institution or make past events disappear. In allowing this act of ‘forgiveness’ to be experienced as a virtuous act, they further add to existing hurt and pain. In secular courts today, there is a practice when a judge will sometimes ask for a victim’s impact statement. This may affect the punishment that is given to the offender. At the recent trial of the American sports coach, Larry Nassar, all the victims made a statement about the impact of the abuse on their lives. These secular examples are putting our national church to shame. Only this week I have read in Private Eye about a victim of Church sexual abuse being threatened with legal action for speaking out to the media about the poor treatment he has received from the church. The IICSA hearings have shown us how far our church goes to protect itself from a perceived attack by those who have been injured at the hands of its employees. ‘Blanking and silencing’ by bishops is just one of the complaints of survivors in the Bread and Stones pamphlet.

Cheap forgiveness and real forgiveness are two quite different currencies. The Church authorities seem in some places only to understand the first kind, the ‘forgive and forget’ option. Those who are survivors want them to begin to grapple with and understand the second kind, the incredibly costly task of moving forward with lives, even though the burden of abuse has left them with a legacy of acute pain. Somewhere, somehow, that path may eventually open itself up to the costly form of forgiveness. No one pretends that this is ever straightforward or easy. Among the many things that survivors ask from church leaders is the recognition of the difficulties of their struggle to move on and to flourish again. They ask to be considered as partners in the long journey which the whole church must take to put right the atrocious events of the past. For that, they must be regarded as allies, not as enemies to be defeated or litigants to be threatened with legal actions. Churches need all the help they can get in this undertaking. They need the survivors and perhaps in the end they need the State to help them protect children and the vulnerable from harm.

A lingering issue that will remain after all the actors in the present Church abuse dramas are long gone, is the way that holiness and evil are sometimes messily combined. Peter Ball and many other abusers before him (and since) have groomed victims by using the resources of organised religion. This makes the victims far easier to abuse. As a comment, someone on another blog, when discussing the fall from grace of Bill Hybels, the Willow Creek founder, pointed out: ‘organised religion does two thirds of the work of grooming’. In short religious ideas and beliefs can do much of the work in making a victim compliant to the evil desires of an abuser.

Peter Ball clearly was able to hide his nefarious designs under the cloak of the monastic tradition with its traditional emphasis on self-sacrifice and physical deprivation. Cold showers and long periods of prayer ‘softened up’ victims and helped to make them totally dependent on Ball as their spiritual guru. The more each victim tolerated this hard and physically-tough regime, the more they were susceptible to complete obedience to every command Ball gave them. This, of course, in the end led to some ‘allowing’ Ball to abuse them. Later the victim was naturally fairly confused as to what in fact had taken place. Were they in some way complicit? I can imagine that Ball kept the boundaries between good and evil deliberately confused for his victims. An abuser will often project shame on to his victims so that everything becomes unclear in the victim’s mind. The abused individual will experience a strong sense of shame along with all the rest of the pain and guilt that are part of the survivor’s burden. Meanwhile we might wonder what is going on inside the head of an abuser when he has aligned himself with a religious narrative to justify his nefarious behaviour. Certainly, according to reports, remorse was never shown by Ball in the period leading up to his trial. In the absence of any expressed regret, we have to suggest that maybe the epithet ‘psychopath’ is an appropriate description of his behaviour. In Christian language, a psychopath is someone who lacks conscience and remorse. The thought that God and psychopathy are combined in an individual is an unbearable and almost unthinkable notion. But it is the only hypothesis that fits the known facts. When holiness and utter evil are combined it represents a challenge for theological thinking. How can we ever reconcile these two completely polar-opposites?

During the 90s George Carey and many other church people were unable to imagine that apparent sanctity and evil could combine in the same individual. ‘Holy people never behave like that’ might have been the cry. But there is another story from the 90s, equally disturbing, that should have alerted us all to this possible combination of evil and spirituality. It is the story of the Nine O Clock Service in Sheffield. The existence of NOS, as it became known, was a shot in the arm for many people in the Church of England who wanted to see a revival among young people. Based in Sheffield under the leadership of Chris Brain, the movement was highly attractive to the young and was at the cutting edge of experimental worship and liturgy. For a time in the early 90s it was identified with a conservative charismatic theology. Brain was invited to meet Archbishop Carey and contribute to a volume of essays edited by him on the Decade of Evangelism. Later Brain’s theology was shifted to being associated with a strand of thinking known as Creation Spirituality. This had been started in the States by one Matthew Fox. There is a great deal more that could be said about NOS but, for the purposes of this post, we should reflect on the way that it became ‘fashionable’ across the church because it appeared to be successful. Peter Ball’s ‘Give a Year for God’ had been welcomed uncritically because it was apparently making monastic traditions ‘work’ for a swathe of young men. NOS was also welcomed because it and its imitators across the country attracted many young people to its night club worship environment. It was creative and original. Brain attracted a great deal of musical and artistic talent into his organisation. He himself was allowed rapidly to proceed to ordination in the Anglican Church as a way of claiming this whole movement for the national church.

The end of NOS came suddenly in the summer of 1995. While Brain was out of the country a group of women plucked up courage to report to the church authorities that each of them had been sexually abused by Brain over a period of years. The total affected was around 40. Almost over-night NOS came to a grinding halt. In Gloucestershire where I was working at the time, the NOS-type services also ceased. They had been virtually the main effort of our enthusiastic Diocesan youth worker. I never attended one of his events, but I understand that clever light effects and the use of dry ice were a feature of what was on offer for the young people. They certainly enjoyed the experience.

The failure of NOS was not a failure of experimental worship any more than monasticism was discredited by Ball’s abuse of the tradition. Both men, Ball and Brain, had taken these along with their personal charisma, and used them as instruments for personal gratification. I have written many times about the power of charisma. Charisma is a power of personality held by a leader. Through it followers or disciples can be inspired to believe great things of themselves or of a cause held up before them. Charisma can operate equally well in religious or non-religious settings. Where religious charisma is in operation it does not become necessarily holy and good. Secular charisma can also work well or badly according to the motivation of its possessor. What was needed in the 90s Church of England as well as today was a better understanding of the way charisma works. Good things within the context of charisma can be tangled up very quickly with evil and acts of sexual gratification. The Church of England has always been drawn to ‘success’ in terms of numbers attending an event like a moth attracted to a flame. Popularity, charisma and success carried Ball and Brain along for several years unchallenged. The consequent damage to the institution when their true motivations were exposed was appalling. Each was guilty of serious wrong-doing. In one case, that of Ball, we have had an independent inquiry investigating the institutional failures involved. In the other example nothing has been done. Everyone has retreated back into a collective amnesia with the hope that the past is past and no one will remember the pain of the victims and the shocking failures of oversight. Brain disappeared abroad to the States and no doubt to this day he is being supported by rich influential contacts. At the very least we can trust that the Church of England has remembered to put in place some injunction that will protect future generations of Christians from this kind of exploitative behaviour. We desperately need to know that the Church has ‘learned the lessons’. From the experience of the past few months, we cannot be confident that this is indeed the case.

Many years ago, as a child, I could be said to have had a fascination with bishops. I regarded these senior churchmen with respect and awe. They were the men of God who must, my child’s mind worked out, be incredibly holy, learned and generally impressive. My first encounter with Bishops en masse was at the Lambeth Conference in 1958. My school was in the Canterbury Precincts at the time and I would waylay them as they emerged from various services to ask for their autograph. I still have the autograph book, adorned with some wonderfully exotic names such as Geoffrey Tasmania, Kenneth Ontario, Hugh Mauritius & Seychelles and Thomas Zululand. I myself was confirmed at the hands of Geoffrey Fisher, whose reputation for cleverness exceeded anything I could imagine. If he believed and understood all the difficult bits of the Bible, who was I to have any problems with the obscure passages?

As life went on, I continued to look up to my ‘Fathers in God’, as they all were until recently, both as examples of godly life and superior understanding. But flaws began to appear, and I can still remember the shock of disappointment when I discovered that my local Bishop had used the same confirmation sermon on two separate occasions. Having recovered from that surprise I still expected them to be superior to my own ministry in the matter of pastoral skill and insight. Even here I began to see that they were subject to the same human limitations as I was.

Over the past few years I have begun to see that bishops are very similar to other clergy in most ways. They may be more experienced, better managers or better connected. It is not inappropriate to think of them as colleagues of other clergy, trying to do a difficult, sometimes stressful job. Fundamentally their work is not inherently superior to the work of other priests, most of whom work in parishes. This custom of thinking of bishops as somehow special has infected the church with a culture of deference which is not particularly helpful. It is bad for the bishops themselves and bad for those who idealise the role as I did, particularly as child.

A culture of deference backed up a certain narcissism of the part of some bishops has not been good for the church. By narcissism in the context of bishops, I am thinking of a tendency among some of them to adopt certain mannerisms so that everyone who meets them is made aware that they are encountering an important person. Narcissism can also make some bishops look a little too comfortable in their gorgeous robes and a little too ready to indulge and enjoy the fact that others might wish to bow in their presence.

Wallowing in a little narcissistic feeding is perhaps not in itself a serious matter. What is alarming is when bishops begin to believe that all the acquired self-importance is justified and real. Arriving at the top of an organisational pyramid whether it be a diocese or a Province is heady stuff for a new bishop. They now possess titles like Right Reverend or Most Reverend. Does the possession of such a title give them access to depths of wisdom that they did not have before?

The greatest problem for any bishop, and this applies especially for those in charge of a diocese, is that their role and self-perception is going to be bound up with the geographical area they preside over and the church structures that are found there. An Archbishop will do everything in his power to preserve the church institution, just as the Diocesan bishop will work to preserve his diocese from financial or other forms of threat. Loyalty to the institution in this way will of course be damaging when it is at the expense of other values, like justice, care for others or integrity.

The IICSA hearings have shown us quite clearly how some bishops and Archbishops seem to have been seduced by a sense of loyalty to the institutions they preside over and, in the process, they have let go of integrity. In summary it has been said that protection of the Church institution has been found sometimes to be more important than the needs of victims of church abuse. Reading once more the booklet produced in February 2018 for General Synod, ‘We asked for Bread but You gave us Stones’, brings one back into touch with the sheer frustration of victims to get the church and its bishops to listen and to act.

What is the charge that we should bring up against those who put the institution before its suffering victims? I think the short answer is a failure of integrity. Even when I have discovered over my time in the church that bishops are not necessarily cleverer or more spiritual than the rest of us, I have still consistently expected one thing of them. That one thing is also what I ask of myself -the gift of utter integrity. By this word I am referring to a consistency of words and action, a person who is a true WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) person. I do not want my bishop to be a person that I project on to as I did as a child or a young clergyman. I know they will have limitations like the rest of us, but I would hope that they were always aware of the fact that sometimes they fail. Some of the behaviour that has been hinted at in the IICSA hearings as well as in the Bread and Stones document speaks of this betrayal of integrity. Such behaviour does enormous damage to the Church. Failure and wrong actions are one thing but the cultivation of an atmosphere of lying, cover-up and deliberate avoidance of victims/survivors and their needs is always corrosive to the well-being of the wider church.

The greatest challenge for the Church of England in this post IICSA period is not just to do the right thing for survivors. It is for the Church leadership to embrace this concept of integrity and require it as an essential part of all relationships between bishops and others and church abuse survivors. Any failure of integrity, and it is still endemic in the church, is like a cancer. A cancer eats and destroys good tissue eventually destroying the host. If there could be a slogan for the Church of England now, it would be something along the lines of ‘Make the Church a place of integrity again’. Such integrity must start at the very highest levels of governance in the Church.

Today, the last day of the Peter Ball hearing has left me with a number of reflections. It has been in many ways been a tough week to listen to all the testimonies. But however painful it has been for me, it will have been far more traumatic for those who have suffered abuse in the past and for whom such evidence arouses deeply disturbing memories. It remains to be seen whether the conclusion of this part of the Inquiry brings any kind of peace to those who have suffered.

The hearing today once again raised the question of the culpability of George Carey in his woefully inadequate attempts to deal with the aftermath of Ball arrest and caution in 1992/3. I have already expressed an opinion on this, but I was quite swayed by the strong arguments of William Chapman who, in his concluding remarks, suggested that the behaviour of Carey amounted to a virtual criminal conspiracy to pervert justice. It remains to be seen which side of the fence the Inquiry will come down on. Will they decide that the former Archbishop has behaved so foolishly and incompetently that he is himself is guilty of a punishable offence, or will they take a softer line as I have done? One telling piece of evidence against Carey was that he allowed the seven letters from victims to be shared with Ball’s lawyers but not the police who were responsible for prosecuting.

The real heart of what has been revealed this week is not the actual abuse that Ball inflicted but the suggestion that there was a massive Establishment conspiracy to protect him. The great and good were apparently seeking to protect one of their own. Whether or not Carey was caught up in any conspiracy is not clear. What is certain is that Ball’s brother, Michael Ball was stirring up some of his fellow bishops and other friends in places of influence to write letters on Ball’s behalf. Ros Hunt had received phone calls from bishops urging her to shut down the complaints of the victims she knew. The activity of these unnamed bishops is indeed shocking. Even if they were convinced of Ball’s innocence, they were behaving in a totally dishonourable and potentially criminal way. I regret that these bishops were not named. The clumsy attempt by Michael Ball to record conversations with individuals on the phone, speaks of a concerted effort make things difficult for anyone who had information against Peter Ball. I might also remind my reader of the extraordinary events in the palace in Chichester when the Bishop Eric Kemp, when talking to Inspector Murdock, was quite clearly acting with malice to prevent the pursuit of truth and justice.

Talk of the Establishment having an interest in protecting Ball, one of their own, leads me to feel that we may be on the edge of another bigger scandal which touches on this case. This did not come up in the present IICSA hearing. I am referring to the Smyth/Iwerne affair. To remind my readers, this was a scandal affecting Winchester College boys who were among those who attended Christian evangelical camps at Iwerne in Dorset. John Smyth, a well-connected lawyer, administered beatings to some of these boys as part of a ‘spiritual discipline’. Some boys received as many as 800 lashes. The subsequent effect on their mental health was little short of catastrophic. Actual sexual activity was not recorded but it is hard to conclude that there were no sexual motives for behaving in this extraordinary way.

An internal church report about Smyth’s behaviour was written in 1982 and this concluded that his actions were serious enough to attract criminal charges. The report was shared around the trustees of the Iwerne Trust (later to become the Titus Trust). Their response was to ‘ship’ Smyth off to Zimbabwe where his nefarious activities seem to have continued. This action of spiriting him out of the country drew on the connections and resources of quite a number of people.

Why do I bring up the Smyth affair in the context of the IICSA hearings? It is because there are uncomfortable parallels with the Ball case. Both incidents involve individuals of high social standing. The Iwerne trustees who dealt with the Smyth scandal reads like a Who’s Who of the evangelical world of the time. In both cases there was a rallying round to protect an individual who was guilty of criminal behaviour towards young people. Each story also involves an Archbishop. Justin Welby, an Eton boy, attended the Iwerne camps in the 70s and later as a junior officer while an undergraduate in Cambridge. At the time of the Smyth scandal at the end of the 70s, Welby had graduated and was living in France. There is however evidence from a published account of his life that he remained in touch with the camps as a speaker from time to time. Some of those involved with the story are incredulous that he would not have heard of the rumours about Smyth when he was a young adult. For him to claim that he only knew of Smyth’s activities when he became Archbishop in 2013 stretches belief.

The story of Ball and that of Smyth seem to have uncomfortable links. The survivors of Smyth are still distressed that the church does not seem to be interested in what they went through. There is no attempt at investigation, no reaching out to them. The telling of their story by Channel 4 was something that happened, and the church seems to want to move on as quickly as possible, hoping that everyone will forget. The lid had to be put back on the bottle as quickly as possible. Clearly that will be impossible to do. But the longer that there is no discussion about the events of the late 70s and early 80s in Winchester, the more the survivors are forced to suffer. Not only is their suffering increased, the story has more potential to blow up in the face of the Church of England to do further harm to its reputation. Just as George Carey may have thought that he was somehow protecting the church by obstructing the Ball story, so the present Archbishop may be playing a similar game with the events connected with Smyth. Police investigations which show a similar competence to that revealed by the Gloucestershire and Sussex police are now needed. Somehow, according to my sources, the activity of the Hampshire police is less vigorous. We may have to wait for some time for this story to reach a conclusion. But, once again it is clear that we must not allow the church to do its own investigations. Bishops may have many skills, but the vigorous uncovering of truth does not appear to be one of them.

There was a moment today at the IICSA hearing when my sagging sense of morale about the state of the Church of England was raised. There was a shaft of honesty and light which came through in the report of a phone call between Dr Rosalind Hunt and Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Wales. The background situation was as follows. Rosalind was in touch with two Peter Ball survivors. One of them was lodging with her in Cambridge where she was chaplain to Jesus College. Over a period of months, this individual gradually disclosed some of the abusive goings on at Peter Ball’s home during the ‘give a year to God’ scheme. This ‘schemer’ was in touch with another fellow survivor and so the two accounts were shared with Rosalind in the months before the original arrest of Bishop Peter in December 1992. The stories were of a sufficiently serious nature for Rosalind to recommend each of them making a disclosure to the police.

After the arrest of Bishop Peter and in the months leading up to the police caution in March 1993, Rosalind found herself in a very difficult position. Her links with the two Ball survivors became known to the cabal anxious to protect him, and she began to receive phone calls. Three of them were from bishops. One of these was Ball’s twin brother Michael, Bishop of Truro. The message from all of them was, in short, ‘keep your mouth and their (the survivors) mouths firmly shut so no harm comes to Peter or the wider Church of England’. The situation was complicated by the fact that one of the victims was still in thrall to Peter and would often speak to him on the phone. Her first instinct as a deacon in the church was to submit to these episcopal commands. But she also knew that there was a moral dimension to the situation which needed to be worked through. She decided to consult an independent friend who was then the Archbishop of Wales, Rowan Williams. Having listened to her story, Rowan reminded her of the ordination vows taken by all priests and deacons. The command to obey the bishop went only so far; the command to obey was in all things ‘lawful and honest’. In this case the demands being made of her were neither of those things. With Rowan’s support she shared her story with the Gloucestershire police and her testimony formed part of the case against Ball.

This anecdote from Rosalind Hunt brings us back into touch with the atmosphere of confusion, seediness and dishonesty that filled the air when the Church of England was trying to protect its reputation in the wake of the Bishop Peter scandal. Most of those who made decisions at Lambeth Palace seem, as we have said in earlier IICSA posts, to have been mesmerised by the giftedness and charisma of Bishop Peter. It was just too difficult to accept that something criminal could be done by a bishop and then afterwards be concealed through a conspiracy of lies and cover-up. Today we also heard from Bishop Frank Sargeant who became the Bishop at Lambeth soon after the time of the police caution in 1993. He added little to the account of Lord Carey. He did not appear to have given any advice to the Archbishop which might have challenged the strongly held idea that Peter was fundamentally innocent. When the history of the Church of England is written it will be said of George Carey that he was good man but he did not have the degree of sophistication to be a good judge of character. His naivety, even innocence, in the face of what we now see as calculated evil was a danger to him and would cause damage to the wider church that he had responsibility for. My motto for anyone going into a job of massive responsibility like the Primate of the Anglican Communion is to say: ‘if in doubt, consult.’ Carey seems to have allowed himself to make decisions without having all the facts in front of him. He also relied on advisers, as someone pointed out, from a generation older than himself. Thus, on keeping up with the trends of shifting public opinion, he would always seem to be behind the curve.

The Church of England has not been well served by the disclosures of this week. Several areas of bad behaviour have been revealed and there have been hints of further levels of wickedness in high places, yet to be uncovered. Sitting at my desk as the author of a blog on abusive power, I attract to myself many fragments of information which cannot be shared in the public domain. Suffice to say I sometimes feel that the Church of England is like the Augean Stables. It needs a thorough cleaning out of its vested interests and power networks. These protect each other and are serious obstacles to growth and future health.

Today a hero of mine and a pioneer in the world of sexual abuse was mentioned by Rosalind Hunt, Margaret Kennedy. I was in touch with Margaret in the 90s when doing my own research on Christian abuse. Margaret herself was a victim of clerical abuse and she had the strength not only to survive this ordeal but to set up an organisation which has now become MACSAS. This stands for Ministers and Clergy Sexual Abuse Survivors. Over nearly thirty years this group has been offering support to survivors as well as trying to educate the churches to take the whole matter of abuse seriously. It receives no official support but relies on voluntary donations. The role it has played, almost alone over the years, has been hinted at by the Inquiry. We must hope that the Church will provide some serious support to this organisation. Jo Kind from MACSAS spoke at the General Synod in York at the beginning of this month. We must hope that the standing ovation she received there will translate into serious support for the work that she and others are trying to do.

I had wanted to give myself a day off from commenting about the IICSA hearings today. Much of what was shared at the Inquiry seemed tangential to the main topic of Ball’s career. Two of those who were questioned by the Inquiry were policemen, ex Detective Inspector Wayne Murdock and Detective Superintendent Carwyn Hughes. We heard in great detail about the police procedures in 1992/3 and 2012/15. The first police operation in Gloucestershire led by Murdock was concluded with the police caution being handed to Peter Ball in March 1993. The second complex enquiry that started in 2012 in Sussex led to Ball’s trial at the Old Bailey and subsequent imprisonment. I was at first tempted to simply to leave the complicated narratives and have a night off. Then I went out for a walk after listening to all the hearings and procedures and realised that there was something bugging me. In short, I had found myself taking the side of the police every time they came into a disagreement or difficulty with the church. The professionalism of the two police forces, in Gloucestershire and Sussex contrasted strongly with the sloppiness and even dishonesty of the church authorities when faced with Ball’s crimes. This was especially true in the earlier investigation of the early 90s. If I was supporting the police rather than the church, that was something that needed to be explored in a blog post.

Murdock, the detective in charge of the first investigation in 1992, came over as a totally honourable man who was committed to uncovering the truth and defeating all the obstacles put in his path. Neil Todd, the original named victim of Peter Ball who tragically killed himself in 2012, was quickly visited by Murdock. Even though he lived in Brixton, Todd received a personal visit the same day that his name was shared with the Gloucester force. Murdock was very keen to speak to him at once before his testimony could be contaminated by contact with other interested parties. We heard about all the support being whipped up for Bishop Peter, much apparently instigated by his brother Michael Ball, the Bishop of Truro. There was also a retired policeman/clergyman, one Mr Tyler, who was working as private detective on behalf of the Bishop of Chichester, Eric Kemp. He was finding out the names of victims and interviewing them with the apparent aim of undermining the case against Ball. This obvious bias of Bishop Kemp towards Peter Ball suggests that he was not prepared to consider the unthinkable, that Ball was in fact a predator, using religion and piety as a cover for exploiting young men as he wished. One could go further and suggest that a guilty ex-suffragan bishop might result in enquiries being made into the conduct of his whole diocese. This in fact happened after his retirement and death, when Archbishop Rowan held a Visitation to the Diocese of Chichester in 2012.

One particular disturbing story, that appeared in the narrative, concerned a visit to Chichester by Murdock to meet Bishop Kemp in early 1993. Although it was a sunny day, the room where the Inspector was received had the curtains pulled. The Bishop seemed very anxious to find fault with the investigation and Murdock discovered later that a system of signalling with his detective had been put in place using the curtains. He managed to avoid falling in any of the procedural traps that had been laid for him, but he left with a strong sense that the diocese and its bishop were not interested in helping the enquiries in any way. He also attended a meeting at Lambeth. While there was less overt hostility, the atmosphere was still one ‘how do we get Bishop Ball off?’ rather than ‘how do we uncover the truth?’ The information that was gathered by Murdock which led to Ball’s police caution, might have been assisted by interviewing the writers of 7 letters which had been sent to Lambeth. Lambeth claimed that no one asked for them, while Inspector Murdock had assumed that such material would be automatically handed over.

The second investigation of Ball by Sussex police proceeded with a far higher level of cooperation between police and Lambeth Palace between 2012 to 2015. Lambeth allowed one of its members of staff to be seconded to help with the enquiry. This was especially important as the police in Sussex found it hard to understand much of the church procedure and culture. Superintendent Hughes made very good witness for the Inquiry and, as with Murdock, one was impressed by their constant professionalism and desire to uncover the truth without showing fear or favour. The topic of the Prince of Wales came up once more. We were assured that he did not interfere in the investigations at any stage.

We return to the thought that the Church has in these hearings shown itself remarkably clumsy and inept in the task of uncovering the facts of an offence and dealing with the consequences. While the police have procedures as well as a dedication not to let themselves be blinded by other issues, the church often seems to stagger around in a sea of bias, deference and subjectivity. What we were shown today was how professional investigation of sex crimes actually works. Each of us watching were cheering on the complete dedication to truth and fact shown by these two policemen. If all policemen and women are as dedicated as this, then we, as a Church, should have no problems in handing over the responsibility for criminal investigation to such bodies. The church seems remarkably ill-equipped at delivering justice and truth in the face of evil and crime. Long live the professionalism that the police representatives showed us today.

Today’s performance by Lord Carey at the IICSA hearing was disappointing, to put it mildly. He showed himself to have been out of his depth in his old role as Archbishop of Canterbury. He showed us how much he had then been lacking in decisiveness. Also, there was a obvious inability to make sound judgments about people and situations. The expressions of regret and the way that he kept on saying that ‘by today’s standards the judgement was wrong’ or ‘we would not do things like that today’ suggested naivety and incompetence. In fact, Carey’s performance today made me feel a bit sorry for him. There was one moment in his story when everything started to go wrong for him. He allowed a meeting to take place between himself and the two Ball brothers immediately after the Police Caution in the spring of 1993. Between them the twin brothers, one the Bishop of Truro and the other the recently resigned Bishop of Gloucester, seem to have successfully browbeaten Carey into a state of confusion about Peter Ball’s actual guilt. Once having put this doubt into Carey’s mind about Ball’s guilt, the Archbishop was never able to act with decisiveness in the matter for the rest of his time in office. As he put it, he constantly ‘vacillated’ in his opinion about the extent and depth of Ball’s guilt. In short, notwithstanding all the evidence at his disposal, Carey allowed himself to entertain the dangerous notion that Ball may have been, after all, fundamentally an innocent man.

I have already discussed the fascinating dynamic in the way that George Carey was overwhelmed by the power games exercised over him by Peter Ball, assisted by his twin brother, Michael. What became abundantly clear in today’s hearing was the extent not only of Ball’s charisma, but also of his narcissism. Carey was just one of the many people that were blinded by the exercise of what appears to be a full blown Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD). It is probably not wise to attempt any kind of diagnosis of NPD but there are striking features in Peter Ball’s personality which tune in with the classic descriptions of this disorder. It is sometimes only after a period away from the narcissist that an individual like George Carey might recognise what has happened to them, how they have been caught up in a grandiose fantasy world that the narcissist occupies.

The first two features of a victim of NPD are the places of success, self-importance and power that this individual occupies. Ball certainly exuded enormous confidence and there was always a sense that nothing was impossible. This was true, whether of spiritual things or other human goals. This larger than life confidence made him attractive to the uncertain diffident young men whom he attracted to his home, those who were prepared to give ‘a year for God’. A third feature of NPD speaks about association ‘only with people of high social status’. This certainly applied to Ball. He managed to drop in his association with the Royal family and other notables at every opportunity.

A detail from the testimony today from Lord Carey was the revelation that he gave Ball permission to renew association with two public schools for confirmations. Without further authorisation, Ball then extended this permission to cover twenty-five other schools. There is no reason to suppose that Ball offended on any of these occasions. But Ball had a ‘gift’ with young people, especially boys, and could put on a good performance, leaving everyone impressed. The narcissist in him enjoyed, even needed to occupy a place at the centre of attention. Thus, he was desperate to get back to accepting such invitations. His temporary absence from these school occasions for a couple of years had been fiercely resisted. In the language of narcissism, Ball needed narcissistic ‘feeding’ and adulation to fill an emptiness within the personality.

Other features of the narcissistic personality, which seem to apply to Ball, are the ways that narcissists are totally lacking in empathy for others, especially the targets for their evil behaviour. One of the features of the hearing has been the extraordinary lack of remorse expressed by Ball or his representatives. It is as though he is lacking in feeling or conscience. The NPD text book also speaks of being ‘interpersonally exploitative’. The well attested sexual abuse of dozens of boys and young men is adequate testimony for this.

One final feature of NPD which applies to Ball is ‘arrogant and haughty behaviour’. This was indicated in Carey’s account of the various ways that the Balls tried to manipulate him over time. Manipulation was attempted, using threats, pleading, even emotional blackmail. Although Carey recognised what was going on eventually, it was by that time too late to stop Ball in his aim of taking back some of the power that he had once enjoyed as an Anglican diocesan bishop. We can offer the judgement that as a sufferer of a full blown malignant narcissistic disorder, Ball was a highly dangerous individual. The church suffers badly from having such people in its midst even when they do not go so far as to sexually abuse young men.

In other pieces I have written about narcissism, I have pointed out how much people are fooled by the possessors of this disorder. As we have already pointed out elsewhere, narcissists often have charisma and charm. They know, as if by instinct, how to manipulate and control the people around them. George Carey was a partial victim. Thus, the narcissistic behaviour was permitted to flourish several years longer than it should have done. Many people felt that they benefitted from the inspirational teaching that Ball was able to bring. Most of them in the latter years probably came to no harm but it was not good for Ball himself to feel that he was somehow exonerated from his appalling behaviour in the 60s, 70s and 80s.

This short reflection on narcissism in the church and the personality of Peter Ball should give us all pause for reflection. His giftedness, his charisma and his ‘saintliness’ were all covers for a highly manipulative dangerous person. Thousands were unable to discern what was really going on in the heart of this evil man. If we are truly unable to discern between goodness and holiness and the actions of a charlatan, then the Christian faith is in peril. All of us need to trust our Christian leaders. Every Ball that arises weaken our capacity for trust. This makes the Christian faith even more difficult to promote in the population of this land. That matters – it matters very much.