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.

I sat through the entire day of the streamed IICSA hearings about the Peter Ball case and the way it was handled, or rather not handled, by the Church of England. There were numerous details, which will no doubt be rehearsed in tomorrow’s newspapers, about the Prince of Wales and discussions among his lawyers over his statement at the end of the week. There were also hints that the former Archbishop, George Carey, will have a difficult reception tomorrow. There do seem to have been major failings in his readiness to stand up to Ball and his supporters. I have already expressed the view that Carey was himself the victim of a power confrontation with forces too powerful for him to resist. One could even make a case for suggesting that Carey was groomed in a not dissimilar way to Ball’s many victims. Part of the British Establishment seemed to be united in supporting Ball, even after his 1993 Police Caution. Carey so far, has come over as a Neville Chamberlain figure when what was needed was the firm decisive action of a Winston Churchill. We will see how his questioning fares on Tuesday. I fear it will not go well.

In the afternoon we heard from three survivors, two of them anonymous but the third identified as the Rev Graham Sawyer. I met Graham briefly on my expedition to Church House in February. The first two testimonies were well delivered, and they illustrated well the combination of charisma and charm that allowed Ball to sexually manipulate his victims. The testimony of Graham was powerful in a different way. In some ways it provided a commentary on what I said in the last post about institutional power. I mentioned that one of the ways that institutional power operates is in giving its owner the power of patronage. Graham as a whistle blower against Peter Ball and his manipulation has found himself at the wrong end of institutional power right across the church. Ball himself was the first to exercise institutional power and the power of patronage against him. Graham was offered sponsorship for ordination when Ball was Bishop of Lewes as long as he participated in some weird spiritual practices which involved removing his clothes. Graham decided not to pursue ordination in England on these terms. Even later, when he was ordained in New Zealand, Graham found it hard to return to return to the UK. A whispering campaign seemed to be in operation and all kinds of mysterious blockages were put up which made it difficult to find any post in this country. It is clear from his testimony that there exists some informal freezing out process against individuals who are perceived to be rocking the institutional boat. Graham was completely outspoken in accusing bishops in England of operating a kind of closed shop against anyone who challenges their power. In this case they were, according to Graham, closing ranks to defend a member of their group who was guilty of serious crimes. It was almost as if the solidarity of their group and the reputation of the institution was far more important that the uncovering of wrong and the pursuit of truth and justice. This seems to be a story that we have heard before.

Graham’s Sawyer’s attack was so vivid and articulate that a listener might have concluded that the speaker was suffering from a raging paranoia. It must have made the bishops present at the Inquiry extremely uncomfortable to hear their colleagues accused of such scapegoating tactics. My personal reaction is to take Graham’s testimony at face value as it fits in with other survivors’ accounts. While some bishops treat survivors with compassion and care, there are others who still treat them as a nuisance, to be destroyed or discredited. The so-called ‘Lambeth list’ about which we will hear tomorrow is one formal list of misbehaving clergy. Alongside this one, there appears, according to Graham, to be another secret list, naming those clergy who have disturbed the status quo in some way. Some of these are probably rightly to be avoided. This list would also, from Graham’s account, possibly include all those clergy who have been abused or bullied by the church but are still seeking to have this put right. That might easily put them in the wrong place and make them a threat from the point of view of the powers that be.

Graham’s speech ended, as with others in these hearings, with a plea for mandatory reporting of sexual abuse. To judge from what we heard today, – the shambles at Lambeth Palace after the Police Caution of Ball in 1993 and the problems of victims obtaining a hearing from the church about their abuses – this seems long overdue. The agony of listening to a story of institutional dysfunction is to continue a further four days this week. It is painful, but that pain will only be relieved when we see a true revolution of attitudes. This revolution will require a fundamental change from defensive scheming in order to protect the institution to an open generous recognition of the evil which has happened in the past and a readiness to pay the cost in every sense of putting it right.

To finish with a quote from Graham Sawyer. ‘Let me make this clear – the sexual abuse that I suffered at the hands of Peter Ball, pales into insignificance when compared to the cruel/sadistic nature meted out to me by the Church of England’.

Next week the Church of England is going to have to endure yet another scrutiny at the hands of the Independent Inquiry and the press. The issue at its heart is the criminal sexual abuse by a bishop of a group of young men who believed that they were following a path set out by God. The facts of the case have been thoroughly rehearsed in a court of law so that in many ways the details of Peter Ball’s abusive behaviour do not need to be further discussed. Damage has been done, severe damage, to the lives of those affected but we are left with a need to understand some of the implications for the wider church community. It is these that I want to reflect on in this post. Above all I see the Ball case as a study of the dysfunctions of power in the church. The lessons we can learn from it are relevant today.

In looking back over the sad case of Peter Ball, we can first reflect on the nature of the power that he personally exercised. As a bishop in the Church of England, he had considerable social power. Social power was enhanced by his going to the right school and university. His social standing and his status as a bishop meant that he was automatically put in a position of trust by everyone who met him. Nobody needed to make a judgement about his personal honesty or character. The Church in its wisdom had selected him as a priest and a bishop. Throughout his long priestly career of service to the Church those in authority had, it might be assumed, watched over his behaviour and conduct. As a bishop, Ball was welcomed into places right across the social spectrum, the homes of ordinary people as well as the dwellings of the highest and the grandest in the land. Episcopal status and social confidence created a standing which was difficult ever to challenge or question.

Social power was not the only kind that Ball possessed. There was an additional power which is common among some bishops and church leaders. This power we can describe as charismatic power. In using this word, I am not hinting at a churchmanship which involves speaking in tongues or gifts of the spirit. I am speaking of charisma in its wider meaning. Ball had charisma and an ability to inspire, charm and encourage others. His presence in any room or gathering was likely to be the dominant one. We sometimes speak about some personalities being larger than life. Ball was one such and no one who met him failed to be affected by the energy of his personality.

Charismatic power in an individual, as we recognise increasingly today, is a double-edged sword. It can be used to build up others; equally it can be deployed to manipulate others when required. Charismatic power and social power when operating together make an individual very difficult to resist. But, in addition to these forms of power, we must add a third, which is institutional power. People naturally defer to those who are in charge within an institution not least because they have the power of patronage. It does not pay to stand up to anyone in a firm who can make or break your career within the institution. Ball, as a bishop in the Church of England, would always have exercised considerable power in the church even before we add the additional social and charismatic strengths which he possessed. The three sources of power that he had, allowed him to float above suspicion or challenge for decades. If there were concerns at any point about his behaviour towards young men, he had the means to quash such rumours or innuendoes fairly quickly.

Next week we are going to hear once more the sad story of how the Church of England was defeated in its attempt to rein in Ball’s power over decades. Reading the Gibb report once more, it is obvious that Ball was adept at manipulating others even after the English justice system had extracted from him a serious admission of guilt in 1993. The simple way to interpret the events that took place in the years between 1992 and 2015, when he was sent to prison, is to see them as a conflict of power systems within the Church. As I read it, the events of Ball’s evasion of justice demonstrate an effective deployment of his personal power against individuals and institutions that were trying to stop his ministry.

A major threat to Ball after his police caution and his resignation from the see of Gloucester in 1993 was the possibility of having his ministry curbed by some form of inhibition from Lambeth Palace and Archbishop George Carey. The avoidance of a public trial in that year had been a close-run thing. This escape from the full force of the law was arguably assisted by the bombarding the Director of Public Prosecutions with 2000 letters of support. Now Ball had to prevent the Church stopping him exercising a ministry among his supporters. These included public-school headmasters and others high up in terms of social position and status. George Carey’s reluctance to take decisive action against Ball may possibly be read as the conflict of two power systems. Although Ball’s institutional power had been weakened, he still retained considerable social power through his links and friendships with members of the Establishment. Many of these were still mesmerised by his charismatic power. Carey seems to have not wanted to be on the wrong side of the power that Ball could still muster to support him, even though as Archbishop, he could be said to have considerable institutional authority. He must have dreaded the problem for Lambeth Palace if even a small fraction of the supporters who had rallied to Ball’s support at the time of the caution had turned their attention on him. Carey, having risen to the top in the church from fairly humble social origins, seems to have been fairly easily intimidated by the disapproval of his social ‘betters’. I am, of course, speculating at this point, but in summary it is a reasonable reading of the available evidence to suggest that Archbishop Carey was simply afraid of the power that Ball could muster against him. The weak responses made by Carey, including the failure to share relevant letters with the authorities, are the actions of someone who is frightened of a power greater than his own.

Social power, institutional power and charismatic power are phenomena to be found in every institution, including the church. It is when they operate without being identified and understood that they can become a real problem. Ball, in possessing all three types of power, could and did become an extremely dangerous individual in the church. There were few checks and balances on his behaviour and the use of his power. Abusing this power was at the heart of his offending. He was also too powerful to challenge, even after his resignation and police caution. Even when the secular authorities caught up with him, the church still seemed not to understand how they had been manipulated by his narcissism and charismatic charm over a long period. What is likely to be revealed next week is a history of gullibility and naivety in the face of a predator who knew how to exercise power effectively for his own ends and fool everyone else in the process.

One of the words that frequently occurs in discussions about church abuse or cult entrapment is the word ‘grooming’. This word is an important one as it tells us something about the early stages of an abusive relationship. Grooming is the process whereby an individual is flattered, bribed or coerced in some way into a relationship with a perpetrator who wants to take advantage of him or her. In a typical case the victim is being led to a point where s/he becomes able to be sexually exploited by a powerful predator. The grooming process may also be the prelude to a financial fraud. This may leave a victim nursing massive financial losses. A faux friendship or situation of trust has been built up so that victims become ready to entrust either their bodies or their life savings to the conman or abuser. Whether force is used or not in the sexually abusive act, the build up to it has normally involved extensive, even elaborate, preparation.

Looking at the relationship of grooming from the outside, we can see contrasting expectations on each side of the relationship. From the perspective of the exploiter the victim is ultimately a disposable object. They are to be used, abused and then discarded. The objectifying of the victim is in sharp contrast to the way that the victim has, through the process of grooming, been opened up to his/her abuser. They have been invited to trust, to respect, even to love the trickster. The relationship from the victim’s perspective is thought to be genuine and heartfelt on both sides. The abuser has tapped into their subjectivity and has used the readiness in all of us to trust another. Grooming seems to activate in each of us a fundamental readiness to trust another person. That, after all, was imprinted in each of us as small children. The close protection by parental figures in the early years is also what enabled us to flourish in the long hard path of growing up towards maturity and independence.

The experience of having been groomed with the subsequent experience of abuse of some kind will arouse a multitude of feelings in a victim. First there may be anger perhaps accompanied by self-blame and shame. How did I get myself into that situation? The supporter of any victim of grooming will know that the dark arts involved in this process are practised against millions of people every day. Against the skill of a practised practitioner, it is surprisingly difficult to defend ourselves. To be open to a person who appears to be friendly and persuasive is not a fault; it is probably far better than the opposite which is to be cynical and ‘hard boiled’ in every encounter with another person. A failure to read the motives of another person may constitute naivety and even carelessness but the experience of being abused sexually or financially seldom involves any guilt on the part of the victim.

I want to return to the point I made earlier about the difference in the grooming relationship between abuser and victim. I suggested that to cheat or abuse an individual required a perpetrator to have the ability to make the victim into a thing or an object. Most of us would find this level of cynical exploitation of another quite hard to do. Possibly the abuser has had to steel him/herself to shut down any respect or feeling for the victim. You cannot abuse a person whose subjectivity you have learned to respect. Another word for objectifying the chosen victim is to ‘other’ them. They thus remain outside any orbit of care you might feel. From the victim’s point of view this part of the abuse process, the experience of being made a thing, is possibly the most difficult aspect to overcome. The sense of being used as a means to gratify another formerly trusted person is deeply wounding. This betrayal requires a great deal of work to overcome and restore in an abused victim a capacity to trust again.

All this talk of the objectified victim leads me into a final reflection relevant to the current church situation which is grappling with Singleton and IICSA. At a time when victims are coming forward to be heard by an audience outside the safety of a therapist’s office or a caring supporter, those who speak out are still extremely vulnerable. They are still vulnerable to the objectivization, the ‘othering’ process which was part of the original grooming. One story I have heard which fills me with horror is that a victim was told that a bishop was heard discussing his case in a loud voice in a public place. This, combined with a sense of being somehow the enemy to the Church because they are speaking out, is always going to be deeply traumatic. Whenever a victim is subsequently treated badly by the same institution that was the context of the original abuse, he or she will be experiencing abuse all over again. Once again, they become the object, the ‘other’, without any right to respect or dignity.

As the Church slowly and painfully tries to get its act together over the way forward to help survivors, it must learn that those who make their voices heard as victims of past crimes are not the enemy. Treating any abuse survivor as an enemy of the Church is simply compounding the original abuse that had made them into objects. Their abusers attacked them at many levels. They undermined their sense of self, their social confidence and their sexual identity. No doubt this list can be greatly extended. The last thing survivors/victims need is to be considered as nuisances or inconveniences because they remind bishops and others of what happened in the past. There will be opportunities in the future for the leaders of the Church of England to help rebuild the trust which has been severely damaged. I could make several suggestions over how this should be done. Respecting another person will always involve honouring their subjectivity, talking to them, listening to them without interruption and providing space for stories to be told and maybe retold. On the part of the bishops and others this process might involve admissions of guilt, failures and past neglect. Surely this process must be better than the continued atmosphere of defensiveness and irritated brush-offs?

When the IICSA process is finally completed, the Church may need to make a public statement of reconciliation with survivors and admit the mistakes and betrayals of the past. Whether it should be in the context of a Falklands scale service is for others to determine, but I can see the safeguarding issue will continue to dog the church and hold it back until bold action is taken. So many visions for the future will be compromised or made less than effective as long as the Church fails to address the present crisis. We need the Church to be alert and awake to the magnitude of the task that is ahead of it.