LONDON (UNITED KINGDOM)
Church Times [London, England]
February 11, 2025
By Madeleine Davies
A ‘huge process of culture change’ must take place, says lead safeguarding bishop
SOME of those who knew of the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth have been “lying”, a survivor told the General Synod on Monday evening. He urged them to come forward to explain their actions, warning: “If the Church of England does not show moral leadership then she will die.”
Before debating a motion that repented safeguarding failures and urged the Church’s leaders to “redouble” efforts to improve practice, members listened to statements from four Smyth survivors offering diverse perspectives. These were read out by the Bishop of Birkenhead, the Rt Revd Julie Conalty, who is the deputy lead safeguarding bishop.
The first told members: “You are all witnesses and all to some extent complicit in failing victims so catastrophically by inaction, by lack of resolve, by failing to ensure process is changed and justice pursued relentlessly.”
Another said: “I unreservedly forgive anyone who has kept information regarding Smyth’s activities from the relevant authorities. . . At times, something like this could have been overlooked. . .
“However, the moral leadership of the Church of England hinges crucially on the transparency of her leaders. . . Some people have been lying. If the Church of England does not show moral leadership then she will die. . . I urge anyone who has attempted to protect the Church from this scandal to come forward and explain their actions.”
A third said that not all Smyth survivors had spoken to Keith Makin, the author of the report on Smyth’s abuse. His report had “prioritised, often uncritically, the voices of the most vociferous and litigious. . . We contest Makin’s conclusions that the detail and extent of Smyth’s abuse was as widely known as he suggests.”
Individuals were being “vilified, as if they knew the whole”. Many survivors wanted to express “profound gratitude to Mark Ruston and others, who sought to protect our anonymity in an age where standards of victims’ protection and understanding of recidivism were entirely different to today”. They were “alarmed and horrified” by attempts to “out” survivors and “further abuse them on social media”.
A fourth said that treatment of survivors by the Archbishop of York, the National Safeguarding Team, the lead safeguarding bishops, and the Archbishops’ Council and its Secretary General had been worse in the past 20 months since the dismissal of the Independent Safeguarding Board than at any point in the past 45 years. None had demonstrated trauma-informed behaviour.
Members voted in favour of an amendment to the motion moved by Professor Helen King (Oxford), which added that the Synod: “at the specific request of victims and survivors of John Smyth QC, recognise that the institutional failure to enact adequate disciplinary process means that this and other cases cannot simply be labelled ‘historic’ as they have continuing effects on the lives of those victims and survivors who suffer the consequences of the prolonged cover-up by the Church of England.”
An amendment moved by Sam Margrave (Coventry) requested “that action be taken to remove anyone highlighted for safeguarding failures in Makin from holding any church offices or having membership of any committees, boards or councils; and call on those who currently hold an office or have such a membership to resign”. The motion fell after the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, the lead safeguarding bishop, argued that it pre-empted the four-stage process underway to consider disciplinary action (News, 5 December 2024).
In her opening speech, Dr Grenfell warned: “We are ministering as a broken church. The work that I’ve outlined can never take away the pain of victims and survivors or offer adequate recompense or assurance of change to them.”
A “huge process of culture change” must take place, she said. “Faced with the unimaginable realty of John Smyth’s abuse and the shame of being part of a church where individuals and groups of people covered up and responded in wholly inadequate ways to that and other abuse, the only possible response is our collective confession, repentance and commitment to turn back to God’s truth and light.” These were “long complex and painful processes”.
The last contribution to the debate came from Simon Friend (Exeter) who suggested that the main motion was “missing something that is deeply rich in our biblical tradition and that is symbolic acts of repentance: physical demonstrations or rituals performed to express remorse for sin and a desire to return to God.”
He gave the examples of putting on sackcloth and ashes, fasting, tearing of garments, baptism, confession, restitution, and the washing of others’ feet. “It seems to me that we owe victims and survivors — indeed I think we owe the nation — a symbolic act of repentance,” he said, calling on the House of Bishops to consider what this might look like.
The Bishop of Rochester, Dr Jonathan Gibbs, has warned that, in the wake of the Makin report, “we haven’t really, at a national level, addressed the anxiety and anger that people in the pews, victims and survivors above all, and clergy, are all feeling (News, 13 December 2024).”