Church on the Ropes…
by the Revd Dr Jeremy Morris, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge:
We are just a couple of weeks into what will be many months of painful interrogation of the Church of England’s safeguarding record by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), and already some outlines of what we must come to expect are becoming clear. The press commentary is likely to focus – rightly – on issues of personal responsibility: who knew what, what action did they take, what were their priorities, where did they place child safety in relation to institutional reputation, and so on. But a vital subsidiary theme will be information – what kind of records were kept, how was information handled, what should be done with confidential information, and so on.
Anyone who has troubled to look at the IICSA website will be astonished not only at the rapidity with which testimony is being transcribed and indexed (presumably audio transcription software is being used, but it must be of a very high quality), but at its sheer volume. When the hearings on the Church of England are finished, what will be in the public domain will provide a remarkable, completely unprecedented insight into the intimate workings of parts of the Church. Usually the records of near-contemporary developments and situations are on restricted access, under a thirty-year rule – a bane for historians like me, but obviously necessary to protect individuals in contexts in which the implications of complex decision-making processes may still be unfolding. Here it is all going to be on view, with facts, allegations, personal views or prejudices, insights into how decisions were actually taken, supposition, all mixed up together. It is already, I would argue, a formidable archive of events and opinions in the public domain, so far bearing specifically on the recent history of the diocese of Chichester.
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