Before Christmas, Archbishop Justin Welby was in the headlines for resigning his post. He admitted that he had not followed up as carefully as he should have the investigation into the activities of a schoolmaster at Winchester College, over 40 years ago. This man, John Smyth, was also a leader in Christian summer camps for teenage schoolboys.
It was alleged that John Smyth had taken teenage boys into his garden shed, and ordering them to undress, had beaten them while they were naked. This was supposedly to correct them from sinning. Smyth was ‘encouraged’ to emigrate to Zimbabwe in 1984 and died there in 2018.
Safeguarding
Now it has recently been announced that other people might have known about John Smyth’s activities and failed to report them for investigation. They face investigation and possible disciplinary action,.
These include clergy, who are now retired, who may face disciplinary action which could prohibit them from ministry for life because when they were involved in these summer camps themselves, they may have been aware of what Smyth was doing, but did not report his behaviour to higher authorities.[GM1] The point is that if they ‘covered up’ his activities in this way, they are not ‘safe’ people for caring for the young and vulnerable.
Lord Carey had his permission to minister removed in 2020. It used to be a principle of legal justice not to put the same person through two trials for the same crime. Lord Carey renounced his ‘Permission to Officiate’ at the end of 2024 and no longer ministers in any Church of England service.
A senior professional safeguarding officer reports that the problem these clergy will face will be if they knew of such abuse by John Smyth and did nothing, even though current safeguarding policies were not in place. But if they can show that even though policies were not in place, they did whatever they could, that will be helpful[GM2] to their case.
So any investigation will need to establish whether: the clergy were not aware of Smyth’s activities, or were aware and reported them, or had no response to their first report and so took their concerns to a higher level, or took action to protect the vulnerable.
If they can demonstrate that during their subsequent ministries they took ‘safeguarding’ seriously, before it became known as such, by putting in place systems to protect the vulnerable or by reporting cases referred to them, that will also help.
The question the hearings will face is the lack of clarity about the terms ‘knew’ and ‘were aware of’. When is someone ‘aware’ of something? Does unsubstantiated gossip without any evidence, details of abuse when, where, what, or to whom with no documentation, letter or names, count? Are these disciplinary hearings an opportunity to pin down some scapegoats?
What people like John Smyth do is surround themselves with ‘trusted friends’ so that when any allegation does emerge they will say ‘we know he could/would never possibly do that’. The accused may have been ‘groomed’ in this way.
An organization which can give advice is thirtyone:eight https://thirtyoneeight.org/
At the General Synod in York in February this year, a substantial number of members, but not a majority, voted that they lacked confidence in the Archbishop of York as chairman because they alleged that when Bishop of Chelmsford, he had failed to take timely action against a clergyman, Rev David Tudor, whom two women had accused of sexual assault. Synod also took the first step towards safeguarding becoming independent of CofE structures because parish clergy and safeguarding officers believe diocesan safeguarding advisers have unbearable conflicts of interest. They have to advise the vicar, the PCC, the diocese, and bishop as well as attempting to protect the reputation of all these – and the question begging to be answered is ‘where is the alleged victim focus?’
Jesus was very wise in sending out the disciples two by two; he constantly sought to restore dignity to those from whom it had been removed. Billy Graham was very careful to be aware of such issues during his ministry.
Blessing same-sex relationships
A long debate on whether people in long-term committed same-sex relationships can have their relationship ‘blessed’ in a separate service, like a normal wedding service, is coming to a close. It looks as though the CofE hierarchy want to make this happen. They argue that if the two people in the relationship are as committed to each other as people are in a normal wedding service, they should be allowed to seek the blessing of God in a similar separate service. Currently they can ask for prayers for their relationship as part of a regular church service.
When the House of Bishops first met in 2025 after Archbishop Welby resigned, those bishops who uphold the Biblical and traditional Anglican teaching that sexual intercourse can only be between a man and a woman in marriage did not approve proposals to bring the matter to the July 2025 meeting of the Synod, the Church’s Parliament. Thus the matter will not come for approval till 2026.
Those who uphold the biblical Anglican teaching have formed ‘The Alliance’. They argue for a separate ‘section’ of the Church of England where such ‘blessings’ would not be allowed. This is to show that there are those in the Church of England who remain faithful to Jesus Christ’s teaching on this.
Parliament would need to approve this proposal since the CofE is the Church of the Nation. This is seen in the Coronation Service which Church of England conducts. The question is whether Parliament would allow what some would call ‘ discrimination’ in the national church.
Canon Dr Chris Sugden