I don't know. Maybe because the BBC asked for an interview and were probably quite persistent about it. There was little to do in order to make it happen. Who knows whether he has tried to reach out to the survivors or whether they want him to?
Well, we don’t but I suppose what I am saying - is that if he needed to explain himself, I am not sure it is to Laura or to us.
I agree. I suppose the clearest illustration is in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5 v23 ff) where Jesus explains that seeking reconciliation, face to face, with those we have offended should take priority even over worship.
Of course reconciliation takes both the offender and the offended to accept, and it may not happen. But at least it should be attempted. I may be wrong but from the reports I’ve read I don’t think it has happened.
The clear guidance in the Sermon on the Mount is that it is up to the offender to take that personal initiative, regardless of outcome.
Well, we don’t but I suppose what I am saying - is that if he needed to explain himself, I am not sure it is to Laura or to us.
Indeed. Laura is an interesting choice for a lot of reasons. No doubt she was out for blood. But again, whether one thinks it the right choice or not, there is a credible argument that he choose to do it because as (retiring) ABofC, he needs to be seen to be facing questions.
Whilst I hope* he has also reached out to survivors and their representatives, there will inevitably be some who he cannot contact who would be looking to hear what he says publicly. Again, one may feel he hasn't helped or that it was a poor strategy but I think it inarguable that it is possible that he had good motives for doing so.
AFZ
*I think there's a massive moral imperative for him to do so.
The BBC showed the interview with Justin Welby to "Graham", one of the key survivors of Smyth's abuse. His reaction, talking to Laura Kuenssberg, immediately follows her interview with Welby. There's no transcript - this is not quite verbatim:
LK (intro to camera): What did he make of Justin Welby saying he forgives John Smyth?
G: I came forward 13 years ago, and what the church has put me through makes the historic abuse pale into insignificance. It's been the most extraordinary, traumatic journey, trying to get answers, trying to get any kind of support - I don't care about Smyth.
LK: Justin Welby said one of the reasons he hadn't acted back in 2013 was because there was an overwhelming number of cases.
G: If this case involving blood and under-age boys getting beaten was not a priority, fairly close to the top of the pile, then what was?
LK: Do you believe what he said today, that there was too much going on that he wasn't able to make it a priority? Or do you think he is still scrabbling around for explanations for something that many people struggle to understand?
G: I think he's scrabbling for explanations. There's an awful lot in that interview which just has me shouting at the screen saying "no, no, that's just not right". The church still is overwhelmed with abuse cases, it is no better at dealing with them. There are people coming forward week-in, week-out, who don't trust the church, who go to other advocates who will work on their behalf. The church is no better at dealing with this than it ever was and remains overwhelmed.
LK: Justin Welby said, for the avoidance of doubt, that he really is sorry. Do you accept his apology, do you believe he means it?
G: Laura, I've said before that, if in 2017 he had contacted us, said "I will come and apologise to you personally, I am sorry, I messed up," I would have forgiven him immediately, but he never has in those terms.
LK: And will you ever forgive him?
G: Not if he continues to blank us and refuses to tell us the truth. We're the victims, we deserve to know what happened and we don't yet.
The BBC showed the interview with Justin Welby to "Graham", one of the key survivors of Smyth's abuse. His reaction, talking to Laura Kuenssberg, immediately follows her interview with Welby. There's no transcript - this is not quite verbatim:
LK (intro to camera): What did he make of Justin Welby saying he forgives John Smyth?
G: I came forward 13 years ago, and what the church has put me through makes the historic abuse pale into insignificance. It's been the most extraordinary, traumatic journey, trying to get answers, trying to get any kind of support - I don't care about Smyth.
LK: Justin Welby said one of the reasons he hadn't acted back in 2013 was because there was an overwhelming number of cases.
G: If this case involving blood and under-age boys getting beaten was not a priority, fairly close to the top of the pile, then what was?
LK: Do you believe what he said today, that there was too much going on that he wasn't able to make it a priority? Or do you think he is still scrabbling around for explanations for something that many people struggle to understand?
G: I think he's scrabbling for explanations. There's an awful lot in that interview which just has me shouting at the screen saying "no, no, that's just not right". The church still is overwhelmed with abuse cases, it is no better at dealing with them. There are people coming forward week-in, week-out, who don't trust the church, who go to other advocates who will work on their behalf. The church is no better at dealing with this than it ever was and remains overwhelmed.
LK: Justin Welby said, for the avoidance of doubt, that he really is sorry. Do you accept his apology, do you believe he means it?
G: Laura, I've said before that, if in 2017 he had contacted us, said "I will come and apologise to you personally, I am sorry, I messed up," I would have forgiven him immediately, but he never has in those terms.
LK: And will you ever forgive him?
G: Not if he continues to blank us and refuses to tell us the truth. We're the victims, we deserve to know what happened and we don't yet.
The BBC showed the interview with Justin Welby to "Graham", one of the key survivors of Smyth's abuse. His reaction, talking to Laura Kuenssberg, immediately follows her interview with Welby. There's no transcript - this is not quite verbatim:
LK (intro to camera): What did he make of Justin Welby saying he forgives John Smyth?
G: I came forward 13 years ago, and what the church has put me through makes the historic abuse pale into insignificance. It's been the most extraordinary, traumatic journey, trying to get answers, trying to get any kind of support - I don't care about Smyth.
LK: Justin Welby said one of the reasons he hadn't acted back in 2013 was because there was an overwhelming number of cases.
G: If this case involving blood and under-age boys getting beaten was not a priority, fairly close to the top of the pile, then what was?
LK: Do you believe what he said today, that there was too much going on that he wasn't able to make it a priority? Or do you think he is still scrabbling around for explanations for something that many people struggle to understand?
G: I think he's scrabbling for explanations. There's an awful lot in that interview which just has me shouting at the screen saying "no, no, that's just not right". The church still is overwhelmed with abuse cases, it is no better at dealing with them. There are people coming forward week-in, week-out, who don't trust the church, who go to other advocates who will work on their behalf. The church is no better at dealing with this than it ever was and remains overwhelmed.
LK: Justin Welby said, for the avoidance of doubt, that he really is sorry. Do you accept his apology, do you believe he means it?
G: Laura, I've said before that, if in 2017 he had contacted us, said "I will come and apologise to you personally, I am sorry, I messed up," I would have forgiven him immediately, but he never has in those terms.
LK: And will you ever forgive him?
G: Not if he continues to blank us and refuses to tell us the truth. We're the victims, we deserve to know what happened and we don't yet.
Reconciliation is a good thing. What those BBC interviews show is that reconciliation is not news. Continuing conflict is. And fostering it is part of the job.
That looks to me rather like shooting the messenger. One of the things the interview and some of the reporting and comment show to me is the rather large blindspot that many in the CofE have about reconciliation.
In the extended version of the interview, Laura Kuenssberg asked Justin Welby what he was going to do next. Justin said that, after moving house and downsizing, in an ideal world, he would like to focus more on mediation and reconciliation and never, after that day, to be on telly again - that he's looking for total obscurity.
Reconciliation is a good thing. What those BBC interviews show is that reconciliation is not news. Continuing conflict is. And fostering it is part of the job.
Hmmm ... The default playbook in these instances seems to be focusing on managing the church's reputation and damage limitation rather than the people impacted. Ideally, the exchanges would have gone:
LK: Do you forgive Symth?
JW: It's not for me to forgive him, I wasn't abused by him. Rinse and repeat.
This is not the time for Welby to demonstrate his understanding of Christian teaching about forgiveness or a witnessing opportunity. It's a mea culpa.
By Welby's own admission, he didn't do anything because of the sheer volume of incidents. On one level I get that, because safeguarding in theory is horrible. In practice it must be so much worse. Another part of me is a bit, WTF? Because there are people who were hurt and damaged who were just left because Welby was feeling overwhelmed. The poor love.
Churches have done loads of really good work to improve safeguarding since Symth. But however good your processes are, they're worthless if people aren't willing to follow them or put themselves out to protect the vulnerable.
I don’t think it was a matter of him ‘feeling’ overwhelmed - simply having more stuff coming across his desk than he was able to cope with. I suspect it was something like, “Here’s another one.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Not another one. Oh no! And it’s Smyth. I used to know him thirty years ago when he was on the staff at Iwerne. Who’s dealing with it?”
“It’s come through Ely diocese, and they’re onto it. They’ve reported it to the police.”
“What do I need to do?”
“The police are warning everyone off getting involved so as not to confuse their investigation or contaminate the evidence.”
And yes there was arguably a fault in not following up (although I think it was reasonable to assume that Ely diocese and the police were doing their job), and a failure in the response to the victims/ survivors (of others as well as of Smyth).
But I think Makin misunderstands the culture of the day when he concludes that Welby “must have known” something about it at or near the time, or subsequently anything more than that someone had described Smyth to someone else as ‘a nasty man’.
I don’t think it was a matter of him ‘feeling’ overwhelmed - simply having more stuff coming across his desk than he was able to cope with. I suspect it was something like, “Here’s another one.”
“Oh, for God’s sake! Not another one. Oh no! And it’s Smyth. I used to know him thirty years ago when he was on the staff at Iwerne. Who’s dealing with it?”
“It’s come through Ely diocese, and they’re onto it. They’ve reported it to the police.”
“What do I need to do?”
“The police are warning everyone off getting involved so as not to confuse their investigation or contaminate the evidence.”
And yes there was arguably a fault in not following up (although I think it was reasonable to assume that Ely diocese and the police were doing their job), and a failure in the response to the victims/ survivors (of others as well as of Smyth).
But I think Makin misunderstands the culture of the day when he concludes that Welby “must have known” something about it at or near the time, or subsequently anything more than that someone had described Smyth to someone else as ‘a nasty man’.
My OH spent all day Monday doing his level-3 safeguarding training which is probably why my sympathy levels for Welby are lower than usual.
You're right - that sounds more likely. What appears to be missing is an understanding of where he / the church got things wrong. Followed by a massive apology.
And you're right about Makin as well. The not knowing isn't just about the culture of the time though. It's also because most people will be reluctant to follow the threads that lead to a conclusion that someone they know and like is capable of such terrible things.
I think at level three, which is where I operate as well, it would be the equivalent to hearing that a youth leader in a neighbouring church was accused of abuse. My first thought would be to contact the minister of the neighbouring church and if she/he assured me that their parish safeguarding officer was dealing with it, and had reported it to the police and the diocesan safeguarding adviser, I don’t think I would then make further inquiry.
I’m not sure exactly what I would do if the person from whom I was hearing was actually a victim of the abuse - especially if my neighbouring colleague was telling me that the police had said not to get involved to avoid prejudicing the investigation. Personally. I think I would feel the need to make some response to the person reporting it to me. But then I am not dealing with an avalanche of cases which are only forming part of my workload.
I think at level three, which is where I operate as well, it would be the equivalent to hearing that a youth leader in a neighbouring church was accused of abuse. My first thought would be to contact the minister of the neighbouring church and if she/he assured me that their parish safeguarding officer was dealing with it, and had reported it to the police and the diocesan safeguarding adviser, I don’t think I would then make further inquiry.
I’m not sure exactly what I would do if the person from whom I was hearing was actually a victim of the abuse - especially if my neighbouring colleague was telling me that the police had said not to get involved to avoid prejudicing the investigation. Personally. I think I would feel the need to make some response to the person reporting it to me. But then I am not dealing with an avalanche of cases which are only forming part of my workload.
But he’s part of a team so it’s more having a process where things are handed off and followed up on to ensure they’re being dealt properly and victims looked after.
And what does “not getting involved” mean? It doesn’t stop you checking someone’s okay surely?
Surely the issue is that the ABC is not meant to be some mid-level functionary but a leader - it was leadership that was required, and he failed to give any.
“The police are warning everyone off getting involved so as not to confuse their investigation or contaminate the evidence.”
And yes there was arguably a fault in not following up (although I think it was reasonable to assume that Ely diocese and the police were doing their job)
Except that when Welby was appointed, much was made of his business acumen and managerial skills.
In an analogous situation where a company was facing - say - a regulatory investigation, the reasonable course of action would be for the CEO to remain uninvolved but to be appraised of the start and end of the investigation as well as of any outcome once it was over. Should things go quiet for a long period of time, one would expect them to raise questions.
<snip> In an analogous situation where a company was facing - say - a regulatory investigation, the reasonable course of action would be for the CEO<snip>
Although, IMO, the analogy breaks down because the Church of England is nothing like a company, and the role of ABC within its structures nothing like a CEO. (This was something Welby’s predecessor commented on.)
But I think Makin misunderstands the culture of the day when he concludes that Welby “must have known” something about it at or near the time, or subsequently anything more than that someone had described Smyth to someone else as ‘a nasty man’.
This looks to me rather like discrediting the messenger. I suggest that determining "the culture of the day" would have formed part of the process. To illustrate, from section 3 of the Makin Review: Aims and ToR [Terms of Reference]:
3.15 While receiving accounts and contributions from a wide range of individuals and organisations we have proactively sought reflections on the context and practices during the period of Review, and beyond. Our experience of reviews of this nature have led us to proactively and consciously take steps to avoid the use of "hindsight bias", which research suggests is a tendency to "consistently exaggerate what could have been anticipated in foresight", and to avoid application of the "knew it all along" effect. In order to avoid this, we have consciously taken on strategies, for example regular exploration of possible alternative outcomes of events to those which occurred, and testing what may have influenced individuals and organisational responses with those who were practising in the Church or involved in the relevant organisations and institutions at the time.
The messenger is, in part, at fault here, from my relatively extensive exposure to the whole thing of church safeguarding. There is a failure to understand (which was also Welby's) that the church is not just a medium-sized franchise organisation, with particularly bolshy franchisees. This extends also to the safeguarding experts he hired, who, of course, would mostly be exposed to the witch's brew of Church House. I don't know a huge amount about the latter, but from the bits I have seen, it is a very long way from even the impaired openness of the synodical structure. That looks byzantine, until you look at Church House, the Archbishops' Council and all sorts of other such "structures". The temptation to mentally substitute a structure of which one has experience, the secular corporate structure, for that nest must have been very powerful. Welby should not have taken on the archbishopric if he didn't understand those structures, and I don't see how his breathless rise gave him any such time. I also don't think, from my observation of him, that he had the inclination to do so - hell, he couldn't be bothered to really work out how a cathedral worked, when I first came in contact with him. This being the case, you have a semi-detached archbishop commissioning detached experts to produce a report which might present an accurate snapshot in the moment, but stands very little chance of accurately tracing the origins and patterns behind it.
<snip> In an analogous situation where a company was facing - say - a regulatory investigation, the reasonable course of action would be for the CEO<snip>
Although, IMO, the analogy breaks down because the Church of England is nothing like a company, and the role of ABC within its structures nothing like a CEO. (This was something Welby’s predecessor commented on.)
This is obviously true to a point; but there's clearly something in the supervisory/executive/director/auditor space implied by the fact that these matters keep being escalated and crossing his desk in the first place.
You yourself imply best practice would have been to followup, and I would assume that Welby would have had more time than the average participant here to think about his role (even at the level of 'why do they keep telling me all these things?').
The messenger is, in part, at fault here, from my relatively extensive exposure to the whole thing of church safeguarding. There is a failure to understand (which was also Welby's) that the church is not just a medium-sized franchise organisation, with particularly bolshy franchisees. ... The temptation to mentally substitute a structure of which one has experience, the secular corporate structure, for that nest must have been very powerful. ... This being the case, you have a semi-detached archbishop commissioning detached experts to produce a report which might present an accurate snapshot in the moment, but stands very little chance of accurately tracing the origins and patterns behind it.
Who knows how Justin Welby conceived of the "structure" of the CofE when he took the job on. I note that the Review was commissioned by the Archbishop's Council rather than the Archbishop (and with instructions given by the National Safeguarding Team).
Another word for "detached" is "independent". I see evidence in the report that the reviewers spent some time getting to grips with the whole mishmash of "ancient ecclesiastical corporations and modern statutory corporations". Is there anything specific and/or material about the origins and patterns that you think they misinterpreted or missed? And to what extent does that affect their recommendations?
<snip> In an analogous situation where a company was facing - say - a regulatory investigation, the reasonable course of action would be for the CEO<snip>
Although, IMO, the analogy breaks down because the Church of England is nothing like a company, and the role of ABC within its structures nothing like a CEO. (This was something Welby’s predecessor commented on.)
This is obviously true to a point; but there's clearly something in the supervisory/executive/director/auditor space implied by the fact that these matters keep being escalated and crossing his desk in the first place.
You yourself imply best practice would have been to followup, and I would assume that Welby would have had more time than the average participant here to think about his role (even at the level of 'why do they keep telling me all these things?').
The Welby defence appears to be that there was no one in the entire place to pass the serious stuff onto for day to day management. Or any mechanism for push back when it's glaringly obvious that the church's own processes - and legislation - aren't being followed. That brings new meaning to the word dysfunctional.
OTH, @chrisstiles, comment about him never wondering why these matters keep getting escalated and going across his desk or finding ways to deal with them other than ignoring them and hoping for the best suggests a lack of basic managerial skills.
Thinking about Justin Welby's attitude to accountability, I am ambivalent about the final exchange of the full version of his interview by Laura Kuenssberg:
LK: You had an extraordinary range of experiences ... when you look back at the highs and the lows of your time as Archbishop of Canterbury, if you could go back in time to when the call came, offering it to you, would you still say "yes" and pack your bags for Lambeth Palace?
JW: Yes, because that's the Church calling, and one trusts the Church's call. I never imagined it would happen, but it did. And I know that at the end of all things I will stand before God and be judged. And with all the highs and lows, the only thing I can say is from the words of an old hymn: Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to your cross I cling. I don't look back and see triumphs and disasters - I see failures, I see good moments, but I see above all the presence and love of God, who has been with me; is with me; and will be with me, and will meet me on the other side of death. And that is what matters above all.
I think what people expect is either guilt or remorse. Saying you failed is not really either of those things, it’s a performance evaluation.
What people have accused Welby of is a moral failing, it’s not really about him being ineffective or getting a process wrong - though obviously that matters - it is the belief that those things happened because he did not think the abuse or its survivors important enough to pay the attention to the issue that it needed to get those things right.
An example of what people wanted to see - I think - was similar to what happened when they threatened to close a church last year rather than be obliged to continue to employ a specific priest. Folk wanted ABC to take the moral position that he would drive a coach and horses through the clergy discipline measure or break employment law if he needed to do so to keep people safe. (Whether that is the right approach is a different debate.)
In other parts of the world clergy have gone to prison, or put their lives at risk, or died - in defence of principles and people. In that context, saying “this internal regulation is stopping us doing x” doesn’t cut much ice. How bad does it have to be before you are willing to break the rules or break the law, or close the church in order to stop it ?
To add to that, he came into post - he saw this avalanche of shit - he could have said, for the next twelve months or as long as it takes this is all I am focusing on. No other public duties, no other ministry until I know personally and certainly we have done everything we need to do around this, until I have spoken to every survivor who wishes to speak with me (having consulted with the police first). He could have refused to crown the king because he had more important things to do.
Instead he did everything else, and tried to do this in parallel - now he may have had a reason for that, but I haven’t seen him articulate one.
On Surviving Church, in a piece about Justin Welby's interview, Anthony Bash wrote the following about Graham's response:
The example of Graham, one of those abused by Smyth, illustrates the church’s failure to properly address the past. In Kuenssberg’s broadcast, Graham said he had had ‘the most extraordinary, traumatic journey trying to get answers, trying to get any kind of support’ from the church and that his experience of historic abuse by Smyth ‘paled into insignificance’ in comparison with what the church had put him through. Even if there is a degree of hyperbole about what Graham says (and I am not suggesting there is), his statement is an extraordinary indictment of what he says is the greater abuse he experienced perpetrated in the name of the church.
I would like to comment. In a few brief ( though agonising ) sessions over 40 years ago, I was brutally assaulted, though at the time I had been brainwashed into believing it was right and would help my soul. It was diabolical, but actually brief.
Then, for thirty years, I lived with the memory, the confusion, the shame, the secret.
In 2012, when I came forward, I naively thought some well oiled machine would swing into place. I thought a process would start, counselling would be provided, investigations would start, justice would be served, Smyth would be stopped, that I would be taken seriously, that I could get to place of understanding, of perspective, a position where I (and the world) would be told what happened, that honesty and truth would prevail.
Instead, for thirteen years now, I have fought the blob, the system, the callous indifference and incompetence of the church. I have been lied to, misled, led a merry dance, lied to again, and then been floored by the sheer, overwhelming incompetence of process. Victims of John Smyth still do not have the truth; Smyth evaded justice by the gross negligence of all those who knew in 2013; our story is part, but only part, told. In my professional, and personal life, I have never come across such a bureaucratic, incompetent, buck-passing, immoral, callous bunch of people as is peopled by the CofE, the NST, the episcopacy, the mind numbing, deflecting, dissembling, walk on the other side, so called Christian , creatures of the hierarchy.
So, back to hyperbole. Yes, the last 13 years of my life has felt like a lifetime. The time in the shed was awful, worse than awful, but ended ( standing in a winter swimming pool, to ease the pain) after a bit. Is 13 years of long, drawn out, life stopping, frustration worse than the abuse ? Yes. The abuse was long ago. The current stringing along, cannot get answers, getting fobbed off, meeting refusing, lying, victim blaming, not-my-job evasion is what consumes me now. Eats away at my soul, my ability to be an independent, grown up, for gods sake move on, human being. We are caught in a whirlpool of injustice.
Every word of what Graham writes is absolutely believable and every word is a shattering indictment of the upper echelons of the CofE at both lay and ordained levels.
A friend whose life has been similarly blighted by the actions/inaction of bishops says it would be more bearable if the appalling effects could be blamed on action or deed: instead they say it is the casual indifference that eats away at them like acid. As they say, it is having to live with the knowledge that nobody can be bothered even to call them out, it is just a bland wall of fog and "whatever".
This is one of the many toxic elements of the deeply ingrained embedding of the Church of England in the establishment. It assumes that it is untouchable, and is in fact insulated from so many of reality's sharper edges that, as a single culture (conscious and otherwise) it has no means of making an intelligible response. It is almost on a different planet, it is so removed from the world of those at the sharp end - because it is so hard for it to be at the sharp end of anything other than money-related problems. And even then, only when it chooses to be, pretty much. It can put its more expendable extremities, such as parishes, in the way of such problems, but the collective core has such an instinctive wall of self-defence.
Comments
Do we know that he hasn't?
I agree. I suppose the clearest illustration is in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt 5 v23 ff) where Jesus explains that seeking reconciliation, face to face, with those we have offended should take priority even over worship.
Of course reconciliation takes both the offender and the offended to accept, and it may not happen. But at least it should be attempted. I may be wrong but from the reports I’ve read I don’t think it has happened.
The clear guidance in the Sermon on the Mount is that it is up to the offender to take that personal initiative, regardless of outcome.
Indeed. Laura is an interesting choice for a lot of reasons. No doubt she was out for blood. But again, whether one thinks it the right choice or not, there is a credible argument that he choose to do it because as (retiring) ABofC, he needs to be seen to be facing questions.
Whilst I hope* he has also reached out to survivors and their representatives, there will inevitably be some who he cannot contact who would be looking to hear what he says publicly. Again, one may feel he hasn't helped or that it was a poor strategy but I think it inarguable that it is possible that he had good motives for doing so.
AFZ
*I think there's a massive moral imperative for him to do so.
That's really powerful and telling.
And heartbreaking 🕯lord have mercy
In the extended version of the interview, Laura Kuenssberg asked Justin Welby what he was going to do next. Justin said that, after moving house and downsizing, in an ideal world, he would like to focus more on mediation and reconciliation and never, after that day, to be on telly again - that he's looking for total obscurity.
That's from near the end of the following programme:
The Interview
Decision-makers: Justin Welby: The Laura Kuenssberg Interview
The programme broadcast on Sunday morning is here:
Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg
Justin Welby and Abuse in the Church of England
Those are both BBC iplayer links.
Hmmm ... The default playbook in these instances seems to be focusing on managing the church's reputation and damage limitation rather than the people impacted. Ideally, the exchanges would have gone:
LK: Do you forgive Symth?
JW: It's not for me to forgive him, I wasn't abused by him. Rinse and repeat.
This is not the time for Welby to demonstrate his understanding of Christian teaching about forgiveness or a witnessing opportunity. It's a mea culpa.
By Welby's own admission, he didn't do anything because of the sheer volume of incidents. On one level I get that, because safeguarding in theory is horrible. In practice it must be so much worse. Another part of me is a bit, WTF? Because there are people who were hurt and damaged who were just left because Welby was feeling overwhelmed. The poor love.
Churches have done loads of really good work to improve safeguarding since Symth. But however good your processes are, they're worthless if people aren't willing to follow them or put themselves out to protect the vulnerable.
“Oh, for God’s sake! Not another one. Oh no! And it’s Smyth. I used to know him thirty years ago when he was on the staff at Iwerne. Who’s dealing with it?”
“It’s come through Ely diocese, and they’re onto it. They’ve reported it to the police.”
“What do I need to do?”
“The police are warning everyone off getting involved so as not to confuse their investigation or contaminate the evidence.”
And yes there was arguably a fault in not following up (although I think it was reasonable to assume that Ely diocese and the police were doing their job), and a failure in the response to the victims/ survivors (of others as well as of Smyth).
But I think Makin misunderstands the culture of the day when he concludes that Welby “must have known” something about it at or near the time, or subsequently anything more than that someone had described Smyth to someone else as ‘a nasty man’.
My OH spent all day Monday doing his level-3 safeguarding training which is probably why my sympathy levels for Welby are lower than usual.
You're right - that sounds more likely. What appears to be missing is an understanding of where he / the church got things wrong. Followed by a massive apology.
And you're right about Makin as well. The not knowing isn't just about the culture of the time though. It's also because most people will be reluctant to follow the threads that lead to a conclusion that someone they know and like is capable of such terrible things.
I’m not sure exactly what I would do if the person from whom I was hearing was actually a victim of the abuse - especially if my neighbouring colleague was telling me that the police had said not to get involved to avoid prejudicing the investigation. Personally. I think I would feel the need to make some response to the person reporting it to me. But then I am not dealing with an avalanche of cases which are only forming part of my workload.
But he’s part of a team so it’s more having a process where things are handed off and followed up on to ensure they’re being dealt properly and victims looked after.
And what does “not getting involved” mean? It doesn’t stop you checking someone’s okay surely?
Except that when Welby was appointed, much was made of his business acumen and managerial skills.
In an analogous situation where a company was facing - say - a regulatory investigation, the reasonable course of action would be for the CEO to remain uninvolved but to be appraised of the start and end of the investigation as well as of any outcome once it was over. Should things go quiet for a long period of time, one would expect them to raise questions.
Although, IMO, the analogy breaks down because the Church of England is nothing like a company, and the role of ABC within its structures nothing like a CEO. (This was something Welby’s predecessor commented on.)
This is obviously true to a point; but there's clearly something in the supervisory/executive/director/auditor space implied by the fact that these matters keep being escalated and crossing his desk in the first place.
You yourself imply best practice would have been to followup, and I would assume that Welby would have had more time than the average participant here to think about his role (even at the level of 'why do they keep telling me all these things?').
Another word for "detached" is "independent". I see evidence in the report that the reviewers spent some time getting to grips with the whole mishmash of "ancient ecclesiastical corporations and modern statutory corporations". Is there anything specific and/or material about the origins and patterns that you think they misinterpreted or missed? And to what extent does that affect their recommendations?
The Welby defence appears to be that there was no one in the entire place to pass the serious stuff onto for day to day management. Or any mechanism for push back when it's glaringly obvious that the church's own processes - and legislation - aren't being followed. That brings new meaning to the word dysfunctional.
OTH, @chrisstiles, comment about him never wondering why these matters keep getting escalated and going across his desk or finding ways to deal with them other than ignoring them and hoping for the best suggests a lack of basic managerial skills.
What people have accused Welby of is a moral failing, it’s not really about him being ineffective or getting a process wrong - though obviously that matters - it is the belief that those things happened because he did not think the abuse or its survivors important enough to pay the attention to the issue that it needed to get those things right.
An example of what people wanted to see - I think - was similar to what happened when they threatened to close a church last year rather than be obliged to continue to employ a specific priest. Folk wanted ABC to take the moral position that he would drive a coach and horses through the clergy discipline measure or break employment law if he needed to do so to keep people safe. (Whether that is the right approach is a different debate.)
In other parts of the world clergy have gone to prison, or put their lives at risk, or died - in defence of principles and people. In that context, saying “this internal regulation is stopping us doing x” doesn’t cut much ice. How bad does it have to be before you are willing to break the rules or break the law, or close the church in order to stop it ?
Instead he did everything else, and tried to do this in parallel - now he may have had a reason for that, but I haven’t seen him articulate one.
A friend whose life has been similarly blighted by the actions/inaction of bishops says it would be more bearable if the appalling effects could be blamed on action or deed: instead they say it is the casual indifference that eats away at them like acid. As they say, it is having to live with the knowledge that nobody can be bothered even to call them out, it is just a bland wall of fog and "whatever".