RIP Father Alan Griffin, victim of a travesty of justice

Jul 21, 2021 by

by Peter Mullen, The Conservative Woman:

MY friend and colleague Father Alan Griffin has taken his own life. We were neighbours at two City of London churches. Alan was the very model of what a priest should be: Theologically-educated, pastorally-sensitive, kind, gentle and convivial.

Fr Alan, 78, died in November 2020 having spent a year under investigation without ever having the allegations spelled out to him. He was yet one more victim of the pernicious safeguarding system which allows the nasty officials who now run the Church of England to act as a Gestapo.

There have been so many clergy, some known to me personally, who have been hauled up before the safeguarding bureaucrats and baldly informed that, from that moment on, they no longer hold the Bishop’s Permission to Officiate (PTO). No more preaching, christenings, weddings or funerals and, the worst deprivation possible for a priest, no more celebrating the Holy Communion.

No questions allowed. The priest might ask uselessly: ‘But what am I supposed to have done?’ And the only answer given is: ‘Certain allegations have been made.’

The malevolent procedure is straight out of Kafka or the regime of Joseph Stalin.

In Alan’s tragic death, there is no consolation for his relations, his friends or anyone. There is only the nonchalant cruelty of the officials who destroyed his life. At least coroner Mary Hassell had the courage not to mince her words.

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