Same-sex blessings and safeguarding dominate CofE General Synod
by Susie Leafe, Christian Today
The Church of England’s General Synod meets again this weekend. A few weeks ago it looked as if it would be a relatively quiet event, but that is no longer the case. Instead safeguarding and same-sex blessings will once again keep people talking – over half of the 237 questions sent in advance by Synod members reference one or the other.
Most of the concerns about safeguarding are focused on the Archbishops’ Council’s decision to sack two of the three members of the Independent Safeguarding Board. Critics of the Council claim that the board members were sacked because they were too independent and too focused on the needs of survivors and the Archbishops’ Council were concerned with what they might have said in their report to General Synod.
In contrast, William Nye, the Secretary General of the Church of England wrote to Synod with the vague explanation that “working relationships between two members of the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB) and the Council have broken down.”
Gavin Drake, a lay member of General Synod, wants to get to the bottom of what happened. He has tabled a motion, lamenting “that any working relationship between many survivors and victims with the Archbishops’ Council has been broken” and calling for an independent inquiry into the “safeguarding bodies, functions, policies and practice in and of the Church of England.” The motion will be debated on Monday.
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