Whither Welby?
Eirenist
Shipmate
in Epiphanies
Just wondering what shipmates think. Naive, or wilfully blind?
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Doublethink, Admin
Who can say?
The whole Smyth business stinks, though. Whether Welby's immediate resignation would help the victims (given that he is due to retire soon, anyway) is another matter.
Admin admonition duly noted, and I daresay there will be more on this matter in the Noos over the next few days.
I'm suspect there won't be any such reflection though, and that like most British institutions the wagons will circle and any issues studiously ignored. Yet another case where a second inquiry is needed.
CW sexual abuse
A few years later, a different - male - physics teacher, was accused of raping a pupil. So they told us we should only have tutorials with him with the door open and stopped allowing him to go into the boarding houses in the evening. He was never convicted of anything - in retrospect, not at the time, I am deeply suspicious about his behaviour because he discussed the situation with me and gave me his personal phone number.
In other words, safeguarding in the 90s in private schools was basic to non-existent. It is difficult to see this, if it’s normal to you. Which is to say, I can see how Smyth got away from it.
It doesn’t explain the actions of senior churchman many years later though. I wonder if there was a sense in which they thought it was too late to do much. Given that at least one bishop was victim I do also wonder if others were hobbled by the abuser’s psychological damage to them.
But then I didn't move in Iwerne circles.
Thank you. For this person from across the pond, the news hadn't broken with such clarity. I was mystified by the OP.
Graystone's book makes it clear, too, that, although Iwerne nominally operated under the auspices of Scripture Union, any attempts by that organisation to monitor or control it were fended off so that the camps could continue to function without its interference.
One church I served in London (1994-2005) hosted a daytime Theatre School, now defunct. I was puzzled to find a leather slipper residing in the vestry/photocopier room until I was told that this was used for punishment. To my horror, the school's leader was a firm believer in corporal punishment and did not agree with the decision to ban it (though he did comply). Whether girls as well as boys got the slipper, I don't know.
My wife, who started teaching (Scottish primary) in the mid-1970s, was furnished with a "tawse" (leather belt) for administering discipline - usually a slap on the flat of the hand. She very rarely used it and would now say that it seemed barbaric - but then it was perfectly normal.
She also taught for two years in a Missionary Children's School where there were later horrific allegations of over-enthusiastic punishment and other abuse. This however was after the Missionary Society of which she was a member had withdrawn its personnel and support (for other reasons). Even in her time she was not happy at the way some of the American staff members talked of "using the paddle" and "breaking the will of the child". Fortunately they were not permitted to discipline the British children.
Report
(ETA Tidied link, DT)
ISTM that notwithstanding the 'family resemblance' of the practices described to corporal punishment it sounded more like an attempt to recreate some form of flagellation/'motification of the flesh' de novo or with existing material which crossed over into fairly dark places.
FWIW when I was very young I went to a school with regular corporal punishment and while familiar with teachers working out their anger what was being described in the coverage of Smyth and others seemed quite different in tone and framing.
The person who compiled the original report in 1982/83 into John Smyth was at the Round Church and is the person who JW has credited with being his inspiration to "become a Christian" and later go forward for ordination - as he stated in an article published in The New York Times at the time of his consecration as archbishop and which he has never rescinded.
Here’s what the report says about 2013
The full report can be read here (pdf)
I think it is fair to say that Justin Welby should have given more attention to this, but he had no standing in relation to what the Diocese of Ely was doing, and was being warned about not compromising a police investigation, and about not intervening/interfering with the proper safeguarding process.
The ABC is not a CEO with a board of directors made up of diocesan bishops, nor are they some kind of franchisees of the ABC. A former Bishop of Peterborough (before he became a bishop of anywhere) described the ‘structure’ of the Church of England as being 43 petty baronies.
He’s not blameless, but some of those pursuing the issue now already had it in for him for other reasons, and there’s something of ‘any stick to beat a dog with’ about the situation.
What I was trying to say was that the particular theological emphasis of these groups in and of itself didn't necessarily incline towards the kind of practices perpetrated at Iwerne and in camps in Southern Africa. I think @chrisstiles is on the money though with the 'mortification of the flesh' thing.
That wasn't a particularly strong emphasis within the evangelicalism of the time though, but may have been a distinct emphasis within Iwerne and similar camps.
I think it is fair to say that Justin Welby should have given more attention to this, but he had no standing in relation to what the Diocese of Ely was doing, and was being warned about not compromising a police investigation, and about not intervening/interfering with the proper safeguarding process.
The ABC is not a CEO with a board of directors made up of diocesan bishops, nor are they some kind of franchisees of the ABC. A former Bishop of Peterborough (before he became a bishop of anywhere) described the ‘structure’ of the Church of England as being 43 petty baronies.
He’s not blameless, but some of those pursuing the issue now already had it in for him for other reasons, and there’s something of ‘any stick to beat a dog with’ about the situation.
Though when you take a practice developed in one context and insert it into another you sometimes get very strange results because it comes without the even meagre checks and balances it had evolved in it's original setting.
Secondly, I doubt there was a hope in hell of a conviction in 1982. Which is not an endorsement of a coverup, but may partially explain it.
That's a very good point.
Would her age and her own potential victimhood (more coerced than complict could be argued by a defence lawyer) be factors?
The smyth children are very much presented as fellow victims in the report (and the one commissioned by advance into PJ).
I suppose, thinking more about it, that chances of conviction would be low - especially given the impact of time passed on witness recollection.
Yes. Rowan Williams resigned to take up an academic post at Cambridge
That seems a rather harsh assessment. Granted, he may (in the Smyth case) have been weighed in the balance, and found wanting - but in what other ways do you think he is, or has been, useless?
Yes, and particularly when there was an emphasis on mortifying the kind of temptations to which adolescents are prone, it lends itself to some very dark practices indeed. 😞
I wouldn't wish the role of Archbishop of Canterbury on anyone. You can't do right for doing wrong. Rowan Williams found that big time.
I don't know what 'useless' or the opposite looks like in Archbishop of Canterbury terms. How do we evaluate the effectiveness or otherwise of the role? Holding the Anglican communion together? Providing a public face for the Anglicans on civic occasions? Church growth? Reversing decline?
Would @Telford have liked to leave the police force with a reasonable pension but his reputation tarnished and subjected to media attention and vilification?
I don't know much about the machinations of the CofE, Church in Wales, Church of Ireland or the Scottish Episcopal Church these days. But I do know there is a lobby which has been out to 'get' Welby for some time.
They may well succeed. But at what cost and to what end?
You'd like a list? OK, in no particular order, here you are:
Locked churches in Covid
Easter Eucharist from his kitchen
Burying of results from "facilitated conversations"
Living in Love and Faith
Paula Vennells
Bishop of Winchester debacle
Refusal to mention, never mind tackle, adoption of FGM by Christians in Africa
"It is my considered view that the letter I received from both Archbishops sent to me in such close proximity to the publication of the Makin review (regardless of its intended publication date) signifies a wider and systemic dysfunction of how the hierarchy of The Church of England has dealt with matters of safeguarding and most particularly the impact of church-related abuse on victims and survivors. Moreover, the archbishops’ use of what I experienced as coercive language when I read their letter indicates a complete lack of awareness of how power dynamics operate in the life of the Church."
https://x.com/NclDiocese/status/1856008653419217399
Just as a matter of interest, who would you like to be the next Archbish? I would like a guy with a pastoral vision.
Sam Wells?
Perhaps someone who hasn’t taken up their ‘fast track managerial’ route - which needs to be done away with imo! Go back to the days when it’s God who chooses someone genuinely reluctant to take it up - only discerned through prayer.
Fair enough, and I wouldn't argue with you (though I don't think the Easter Eucharist from his kitchen was too much of a heinous crime...plenty of other clergy did similar stuff during lockdown).
As reported just now in the Independent:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/justin-welby-archbishop-canterbury-resign-church-england-b2645052.html
I don’t think it will be a woman. next York maybe, but I’m not sure I see the powers that be pulling the pin on that particular Canterbury grenade at the moment.
Given the weight now given to the wider communion it's hard to say - if the GAFCON types dominate those seats they will likely have to support a male candidate to maximise their influence (as some conservative provinces still have male-only priesthood) but the thumb will certainly be on the scales against the affirmation of LGBTQ+ Christians.
I'm sure @Telford's 'useless' list might differ from @TheOrganist's.
My own perception is that the CofE has become more 'managerial' under Welby but then I can understand them trying to leverage all that as Rowan's Archbishopric was the opposite of 'managerial.'
I'm not sure he can be blamed for everything that's happened under his watch nor do I see how he could have 'tackled' FGM among African Christians as it's not as if he has any influence or jurisdiction over the Copts. I've not heard of Anglican Christians adopting this heinous practice but if they had then yes, he should have spoken out or done something about it.
The role is a poison chalice for whoever takes it on.
I'm assuming a lot of people would object to the long leash he's given the HTB crowd.
I note how easily Smyth was able to slip out of public scrutiny in Britain and continue abusing youngsters in Zimbabwe and South Africa.
From the Makin report: "Smyth was encouraged to leave the UK and he moved to Zimbabwe without any referral being made to police.
In Zimbabwe he was charged with the manslaughter of a 16-year-old boy, who was attending one of his summer camps. Smyth was not convicted of the offence."
A major international cover-up and it is impossible to believe senior cleric and youth workers were not aware of what was going on.
If you read the archbishops' letter than +Newcastle responded to (link in post by @chrisstiles above) you'll see why ++York is not a good idea.
TPTB have been making such an almighty cock-up for so long they should be ignored. Moreover, I'd suggest that now should be the time to reconsider the whole mechanism for appointment: they could do worse than asking every CofE member on an electoral roll to nominate and then list all the qualifying bishops.
It is going to take at least 12 months for a successor to be found. As a temporary measure, I'd suggest that someone - a retired bishop ideally - be put into Lambeth not as "archbishop" but as a bishop for the diocese and to cover those national events that may occur and need a prelate of proven gravitas and stature. Two people come to my mind - ++Rowan and ex-London Richard Chartres.
As for the role of Head of the Anglican Communion, this is definitely the time to separate the two roles so that Canterbury stands alone.