Robert was sexually and physically abused between age 9 and 13 while at a Cathedral Choir School. He recently told me his story:
“The Cathedral was heaven to me, from the first time I went for voice trials… The choirmaster led me into the nave. He asked me to sing a high note, and to my amazement the echoes danced around the expanse of this vast building. I felt then as an eight year old I had heard the voice of an angel which would somehow please God my father. … But then the cathedral became the place I was abused multiple times. When I left aged 13 it was like I said goodbye to my father in heaven.”
“On the brink of suicide aged 18, I came I came to personal faith. I occasionally visited but found it difficult to go to an Anglican church. I broke down on going into a Cathedral. I had such a surge of emotions …”
“It was only six years ago I first told my story to a CofE vicar. Then two years ago I met with the Dean in the Cathedral where I’d been abused. Last year in my mid sixties I was at last able to return to sing evensong there.”
Of the four men who abused him, two sexually, only one has been convicted and that for abuse committed against boys a decade later. Of the others, two have since died, and the CPS said that Robert’s testimony was not enough to bring the last to trial.
Stories like Robert’s of abuse in the Church of England have over recent years been far too common. I grieve deeply all they have suffered. I rejoice with those who’ve found new hope and faith like Robert has. But I know his story is not shared by many. For some the church is a huge stumbling block. That is a travesty
Only three weeks ago The Church’s Darkest Secret, a two part documentary shown on BBC2 told again the shocking facts of sexual abuse by Bishop Peter Ball and fellow clergy. More shocking was the inaction and refusal to believe the allegations by senior church leaders.
Bishop Peter Ball, once commonly described as “a gifted and godly monk,” first Bishop of Lewis and then of Gloucester, was first arrested for indecent assault and gross indecency in December 1992. He finally pleaded guilty to indecent assault and misconduct in public office in September 2015. In the years between a considerable numbers of investigations into Ball’s activity by church leaders and police took place. Throughout this time he remained free to continue in ministry, even after his resignation as Bishop and his caution by police in March 1993 and despite senior church leaders apparently being aware of his considerable history of sexual assault. It seems clear that Ball’s freedom was not due to his innocence or the lack of evidence but three things: the church’s failure to take child sexual abuse seriously; their failure to listen to the survivors of clergy sexual abuse, and by contrast to believe Ball; and to give heed to the support for Ball of many Establishment figures. What the programme dramatically calls the church’s darkest secret is rather an open secret, and a dirty secret.
Child Sexual Abuse in the UK has in recent years seemed endemic. Revelations of abuse in childrens homes, young offenders institutions, residential schools, the BBC, football clubs, even at the heart of Westminster have at times been weekly. More shocking perhaps has been the fact that the church was not immune; Ball was only the most senior of a long list of perpetrators of abuse within the Church of England. When in 2012 the scale of abuse by Jimmy Saville at the BBC and the hospitals and homes where his celebrity gained him access became known the pressure for a government-led inquiry grew, and in 2014 the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IIICSA) was established. After two years, three chairs resigning, and considerable loss of confidence, the appointment of Professor Alexis Jay in August 2016 saw progress. Fifteen investigations were announced, among them three dedicated respectively to the Anglican Church, the Roman Catholic Church and a wider more generic one to “Child protection in religious organisations and settings.”
Parallel to the Inquiry investigations, IICSA’s Truth Project, I will be Heard, provides opportunity for victims and survivors of child sexual abuse “to share their experiences and be heard with respect.” By January 2020 4,000 people had taken that opportunity. Victims and Survivors Speak Out (June 2018) records the harrowing accounts of some of them.
I find it deeply sad that the church, called to be a place where troubled people, including the sexually abused, find grace, hope and freedom has been a place where the same problems are deeply embedded. My starting point in our response to IICSA is then for the church to be the first to embrace the hard truths the Inquiry tells us.
I recently spoke at church on sexual abuse. Tamar, a victim of sexual abuse looks at the story of the rape of Tamar, a daughter of King David, by her princely brother. I described the impact of that sexual abuse on Tamar, on the abuser, and then on the family and circle of the victim and the abuser respectively. Finally I looked at the response of leadership, and King David’s abject failure to deal with the evil but rather to condone it. The impact of that failure was considerable.
Central to so much of IICSA’s hearings has been the church’s handling of disclosures of abuse. I want to ask two questions:
How has it happened that as a church we have allowed ourselves to become mired in the mess of a failure to respond appropriately to survivors?
How is it that each survivor has been deprived of the apology and compensation for the trauma and consequent lifetime of struggle they deserve, and instead lawyers and insurers seem to play their games and write endless briefs avoiding apology and seeking to pay as little as possible?
The testimony of the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG) representative at the July 2019 IICSA hearing does absolutely no credit to a church that seeks to be a bearer of good news. Even last week we had report of EIG pressuring survivors who were on suicide watch to accept lowered compensation – and that on the grounds of the reports of psychologists who’d never even met the person they assessed. We can surely never restrain our Gospel agenda of peace, justice and reconciliation because of the demands of business? If that means asking the Church Commissioners to release money for appropriate redress and compensation we must do that. Yes, the Commissioners are seeking to guard the legacy of our history, but without justice what is that legacy?
The seven weeks of IICSA Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in the Anglican Church is now complete. The interim report into the first two sessions, on Chichester Diocese and Peter Ball was published in May 2019. That made five recommendations. We will be debating a response to those at General Synod next week. The report also listed in its conclusions (from Para 55) a number of issues it wanted to examine in the final stage of its hearings. These give something of an idea as to what will be coming in the final report originally promised for “late this summer.”
IICSA has been deeply painful for the church. To have its dirty washing – let’s be honest, its filthy washing - aired in public during seven weeks over the past two years has been deeply shameful. We owe it to ourselves, and even more to the survivors and our God in Heaven, to embrace its whole process as deeply and widely as we can. The five recommendations were an important start. But let me be honest, my response on reading the synod papers was “Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes and Yes. Now, can we move from the obvious – for I hope they are self-evident and uncontested – to the deeply problematical ....” I gather the survivors response was “Is that all.”
We could be entirely logical and say, “We will wait for the final report before responding further.” But sadly the survivors have had enough of waiting. And the world out there, and especially the media, will echo the words above: “Is that all?” I believe we need to respond now.. See note 1
We need to express our full and honest response of lament and shame for our past failings. Last year the senior staff of Blackburn Diocese got that and in their “Ad Clerum” letter (Yes, we Anglicans use fancy latin phrases rather too much) expressed their response in a way a number of us felt should be a model to the wider church. We again recommend that as a model of response.
We need to commit to an immediate and in-depth response to the final IICSA report.
We need to respond to the huge personal cost that survivors of abuse in the church paid in giving testimony at IICSA or in watching its proceeding. Appropriate compensation and redress must be a priority, all within context of apology. Anything preventing that is not acceptable.
And finally we need to learn from our survivors and from experts in trauma and PTSD how we can make it easier for those who have been deeply wounded and still need to disclose their abuse, as well as for those who God forbid will be victims in the future.
It is to that end that I and my fellow General Synod members Martin Sewell and David Lamming are introducing amendments to the motion currently on the table. We ask for your support in prayer, by encouraging your synod member friends to support our amendments, and in doing your part to make our church a safer place for all God’s Children.
We have no desire to shame our leaders. But we do believe the whole church has been silent for too long on this, and left it to the Bishops. It is clearly too much for them to bear. General Synod now needs to add its weight to this issue as clearly as possible in bringing this season to an end.
Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse will carry the impact of trauma throughout their lives. Nothing we do will change that. But we can lay a foundation for a response that will make that journey easier.
note 1. A letter from survivors to synod members us now posted on Surviving Chufch. http://survivingchurch.org/2020/02/05/open-letter-to-general-synod-from-abuse-survivors/
Update:
My amendment was ruled as not meeting the standing orders rules around a narrowly cast motion. This is reported on in the Church Times article, Safeguarding amendments to give synod motion ‘more teeth’ are rejected. https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2020/7-february/news/uk/safeguarding-amendments-to-give-synod-motion-more-teeth-are-rejected
However we understand a new amendment meeting many of our objectives has been accepted.