The sudden and shocking departure of the Bishop of Liverpool, John Perumbalath, following allegations of sexual abuse and sexual harassment against two women, one of whom was a bishop, have stunned the Church of England.
In a Religion Media Centre briefing, the Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, said the bishops who met last week, were “very, very deeply shaken” by the turn of events. And the briefing was told there is recognition of a crisis of trust in the church hierarchy.
Bishop John Perumbalath had denied any wrongdoing, but CofE leaders in Liverpool said his position was untenable after a report on Channel 4 news outlined the allegations. His departure came weeks after the unprecedented resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, which followed the Makin review into the abuser John Smyth.
Deep impact
Bishop Philip North said: “I’m just devastated, really, that this mess that we’re seeing unfolding since the publication of the Makin review undermines good work.
“Tremendous, heroic work was going on at ground level with parish safeguarding officers and clergy going to tremendous lengths and taking safeguarding seriously.
“I can totally get why trust in bishops is at such a low ebb. It really is at a low ebb. And there are reasons for that. We’ve seen poor judgment. We’ve seen, quite possibly, poor behaviour. We felt trapped, I think quite often, by systems and structures.
“I can’t deny there’s huge reputational damage done to the church at a national level, to the standing of bishops and to the perception of the church and the Church of England, and we feel still to be very much on the back foot, very much on the defensive”.
Asked whether the bishops’ moral authority had gone after the scandals, he said most people had a knowledge of the Church of England through the parish church. Nationally, reputation needed to be restored.
“I think at the moment, our reputation as a house of Bishops is going through a problem, and we need to deal with that problem. And I certainly feel less confident in speaking out on some issues around justice and so on than I would have done. I’m very much praying that we can address that problem and recover our voice in the public square.
“For me, the great damage is the evangelistic damage. Our job is to capture imaginations with the person of Jesus Christ. It’s difficult to do that when we’re getting day after day, at a national level, bad coverage”.
Disillusioned clergy
It’s not just bishops who have felt the pain. Journalist Mick Ord, from Liverpool, said clergy he had spoken to in the city felt disillusioned by the leadership of the church across the board. He had invited one person to join in this discussion, and the reply was ‘I don’t trust the hierarchy’. He said this was from an experienced clergy person in the diocese.
Archdeacon Miranda Threlfall-Holmes said she was not surprised at this: “We’ve known for a long time that there’s a real crisis of trust in the Church of England that is part of a wider crisis of trust within our nation…. of the press, of the media, of politicians, of charities”.
She found the mood in the parishes on Sunday morning was calm with an expectation that matters were to be fully investigated.
The Rev Stuart Haynes, communications officer in Liverpool, said there were people concerned at the actions of the leadership, but many messages of support and understanding for the situation they found themselves in.
He said the overall reaction was a desire for processes to change. In other places of work, such as a school, a member of staff might step aside for an investigation, but this didn’t happen in the church.
“The first the whole world gets is a sort of media storm led by an expose, a report, and that makes it very difficult to operate and function in for everybody”.
Bishop John Perumbalath said he had been subject to trial by media. He gave his side of the story soon after his departure, in a Facebook post which had since been taken down.
The Archdeacon said it was written at a time of great stress and needed to be handled ethically and with care. It had been irresponsible to publish it elsewhere online.
Liverpool response
Further details became clear. The bishops in the story, of Liverpool and Warrington, were receiving pastoral care. The Archdeacon was confident Bishop John Perumbalath had received the conversations he needed to have, before he left. And there is still no word of the next move for the Bishop of Warrington, Bev Mason, who revealed she had made the complaint of sexual harassment, and who has been on study leave for 18 months.
Mick Ord reported that lack of information on this leave to clergy and congregations, had made clergy feel a veil was being drawn over the story with only a small number of people in the hierarchy aware of the reason. Stuart Haynes said: “It’s not for us to break the confidences of individuals in the situation that they’re in and we’ve got to respect their wishes on all of those kind of things”.
The Archdeacon said the main concern now was to find out the truth about what happened: “We have no way of knowing what the truth is behind these allegations. It would be totally improper for us to be making a judgment. We haven’t got the information, and it’s not our place to do so. The appropriate thing would be for them to be investigated fully and properly”.
Parishes doing their best while the church is in freefall
Two parish clergy joined the discussion. Father Alex Frost, podcaster and vicar of St Matthew the Apostle, Burnley, said he had confidence in the safeguarding process in his diocese, but:
“It’s the senior stuff, isn’t it? It’s the big stuff. It’s the people at the very top that are falling across historical stuff that’s being drip fed out by the media. It’s almost like the Church of England don’t know what’s coming next. Other people know what’s coming before we do. And that’s a precarious place to build a safeguarding policy upon”.
“We’re running two parallel universes here. We’re running the hierarchy of the Church of England that is in disarray, and we’ve got the local churches that are going about their business, doing their best, against the backdrop of a church that seems to be in in free fall.
He asked: “What chance have you got when you’ve got this as the backdrop?”
He agreed with comments from Liverpool that there is a huge breakdown in trust and honesty and integrity, and said that unless this was regained, the church would lose more people.
The Rev Canon Rachel Firth, vicar of Huddersfield parish church, said there was a tiredness in communities, with people questioning “How many more revelations do there have to be?”
There was also a lack of surprise among church members, because they were aware of safeguarding mistakes in every quarter of life. She emphasised that the church had dramatically improved its safeguarding practices at local level in the 16 years since she was ordained.
Safeguarding reforms
There was agreement across the board that the structures and processes of the church needed to be changed.
Archdeacon Miranda Threfall-Holmes spoke about next week’s general synod which will decide on a new model of safeguarding, with independent oversight.
Safeguarding teams are not investigators, she said, they simply manage risk. Serious allegations of criminality are passed to the police but in other cases, there are no church procedures for making judgments.
The Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, said a strong independent scrutiny body was an absolute given, but issues around HR and clergy terms and conditions must also be considered.
“Our reputation as a house of bishops is going through a problem, and we need to deal with that problem. We must address this crisis quickly. We must move on so we can carry out our responsibilities, which is particularly around being a voice for justice and a voice for the poor”
Disestablishment
The Church of England is the established church, with a formal relationship with the state. The monarch is the Supreme Governor, there are 26 Lords spiritual (CofE bishops) in the House of Lords, the UK Parliament approves many church laws.
But the abuse scandals have strained links between church and state, with calls for a Royal Commission to investigate, because MPs have been lobbied by constituents to sort out the mess.
The recent polarised debate over same sex blessings had earlier led to MPs calling for parliament to intervene, forcing the church to progress.
Bishop Philip said the key thing about establishment was the responsibility of the Anglican priest for every single person in their parish. The church knew what was happening on the ground and could magnify that to those in positions of power.
He said: “Not many organisations can do that. So we must address this crisis quickly. We must move on so we can carry out our responsibilities, which are particularly around being a voice for justice and a voice for the poor”.
Theo Hobson, who wrote “Against Establishment: An Anglican Polemic”, told the briefing that the proposed safeguarding changes, bringing in an independent scrutiny body, would deepen establishment.
“It means that a secular body has statutory powers to comment on whether a bishop, for example, is using his authority well, or whether his position is untenable.
“And it’s better to have that coming from a body than coming from Channel Four News.”
View the briefing or listen to the podcast via links here
The journalists asking the questions in the briefing were: Ruth Peacock, Tim Wyatt, Mick Ord and Catherine Pepinster
