newsBig wigs in the Church of England remain silent as stone after a child abuse scandal that rocked the 850 million strong worldwide Anglican Communion
Ex-archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby – All dressed up in his clerical finery.
OMERTA is a southern Italian code which places importance on silence in the face of questioning by authorities or outsiders – especially during criminal investigations. It could become the mantra for a cowardly and increasingly remote and unpopular Church of England headed by a king, says TREVOR GRUNDY
Bishops and other senior clergy remain quiet as church mice as one of the biggest child abuse scandals in its long history rock an established church headed by a king.
“There s a culture of silence and fear amongst the bishops which is really unhealthy,” the social affairs commentator Trevor Phillips said during a Sky News programme.
That came soon after the outspoken Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartey, said that some senior clerics were thinking more about their own careers than the safety of children.
Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle
She had the courage to call for Welby’s resignation
A trumpet blower who stood alone with the courage to demand Welby’s resignation.
She was the first senior cleric to demand the apology and resignation of Justin Welby who as Archbishop of Canterbury (2013 -2024) was leader of the 850 million strong worldwide Anglican Communion.
She was reported by the Daily Mail (November 18, 2024) as saying that bishops are silent after it was revealed Welby did next to nothing to protect victims of a vile paedophile who abused about 130 children in England, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
She said that most of them carry on with their lips sealed and their eyes wide-shut “because they see themselves as succeeding to be the new archbishop.”
What’s the point of this vasty wealthy but also unwieldly body is the question.
Two of Britain’s best-respected commentators on religious affairs, are AN Wilson and Catherine Pepinster.
The former is the author of books about Jesus and Saint Paul; the latter is a former editor of The Tablet magazine.
Under the heading “I’m a believer, but time’s up for the Church of England” Wilson wrote in The Times of November 16, 2024:
”As far as institutional Christianity is concerned in Great Britain, the game is up. The Church of England by Law Established, bishops sitting in the House of Lords dressed like walk-on parts in Wolf Hall, the glorious word depicted in Anthony Trollope’s Barchester novels, in which shovel-hatted high Tory archdeacons await the call from Downing Street to tell them that they are to o bishoprics– all that is over. It was over, in reality, years ago.”
Charles with Justin Welby when he was archbishop of Canterbury.
The king if and his clerical friends are pillars of the established Church. For how much longer is the question.
The disgraceful cleric will stay in his job and remain at Lambeth Palace in London until the Feast of the Epithany on January 6 next year.
Writing in The Guardian (November 13, 2024) Pepinster put her finger on the pulse.
She said that although the voluntary resignation of an archbishop of Canterbury was unprecedented, it was also inevitable after the publication of the Makin report – about which Welby and so many other senior Anglican clerics showed a distinct lack of curiosity.
(The report is so well known there is no need to mention its highlights here).
Pepinster also indicated that Welby got to the hot seat (and later crowned Charles in a ceremony that cost taxpayers about £72 million) because he was a business-minded former oil executive in Nigeria.
She wrote: “Certainly, when you spoke to him, you sensed he was a CEO who had mentally allocated you five minutes before passing on to the next matter to be dealt with.”
Welby spent weeks mastering the art of crowning a king . . .
. . .but spend hardly any time at all tracking down a paedophile
The scandal continues with louder and louder calls for more heads to fall – metaphorically, of course.
All these well fed, well paid, well housed and privileged people in all their finery, vestments trimmed with gold threads and a bejewelled clasp on their cloaks and copes telling us from pulpits in almost empty churches that the Son of Man had nowhere to lay his head.
Said Pepinster – “It’s hard to believe this has any connection with a wandering rabbi on the shores of the Sea of Galilee with his band of 12 followers.”
The Bishop of Newcastle Helen-Ann Hartley was the most senior member of the clergy to suggest Justin Welby step down, after a report found he did not sufficiently follow up allegations.
John Smyth, a lay preacher associated with the church, is thought to have physically, sexually and psychologically abused as many as 130 people in three countries over several decades.
Bishop Hartley told the BBC she thought some of her colleagues had been silent out of fear for their careers while others were hoping to replace Mr Welby.
Interviewed on the Sunday programme on Radio 4, she said she had received very little support from church colleagues after speaking out, with only a few contacting her privately.
Asked if she felt “frozen out” by other bishops and archbishops since then, she said: “Yes, I do.
Asked why that might be, she said: “Perhaps some of them are shocked that one of their number has actually called out [the] culture and spoken out publicly in a way that has caused some shockwaves amongst the bishops.
“I think perhaps they’re fearful of what that means for them and I think some are not sure how to respond – and I think some are certainly silent because they do see themselves, sadly, as potentially taking over from Archbishop Justin.
“There is definitely some careerism.”
Bishop Hartley said she had received hundreds of letters and emails from members of the public thanking her for speaking out but there was not much she could do about church colleagues isolating her.
She added: “I’m not dwelling on it, for my own sense of wellbeing, because I know that I have done the right thing – and I think history will judge me in that way.