THE Church of England is facing “one of the biggest existential crises . . . since the Reformation”, in the wake of the Makin Review into abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, the Bishop of Rochester, Dr Jonathan Gibbs, said on Tuesday.
Speaking after voting in favour of a diocesan synod motion that expressed no confidence in the Archbishops’ Council’s oversight of safeguarding (News, 10 December), he suggested that the lack of a national, pastoral response to the strength of emotion elicited by the report had been a “significant omission”.
“In many people’s views, and I think I would share it, this is one of the biggest existential crises that the Church of England has faced since the Reformation,” he said. “For that reason, I think there is a real need for what I would call a pastoral response, acknowledging that hurt and pain, particularly of victims and survivors, but that so many people are feeling.”
This was happening at a diocesan and local level, he said, but required a national response, too. “I think we are going through a period of collective trauma over this, above all for victims and survivors but also for the whole Church, and I think it’s a shame that there hasn’t been that broader response from the Archbishops’ Council.”
Speaking from a meeting of the House of Bishops, he confirmed that there was an intention to make such a response. But he regretted that it had not come sooner: “My feeling is that was a significant omission.”
He had been “torn” before the debate at diocesan synod on Saturday, uncertain of how he would vote, he said. “But I thought it was important to support my sisters and brothers in the diocese, in articulating concerns, especially on behalf of victims and survivors but also on behalf of the whole church community, to say ‘We need a better response’.”
The response should start with “an acknowledgement of the anger and hurt people are feeling, and a commitment to listening to their concerns,” he said. “It should include a call to prayer and repentance across the Church, leading to a period of deep reflection on the kind of cultural change that is needed at all levels with a view to making the growth of safe and healthy culture the first priority in every area of the Church’s life.”
Dr Gibbs was the Church’s lead safeguarding bishop from 2020 to 2023, and has spoken of how childhood trauma partly explained his decision to take on the post (News, 3 April 2020). During this time, he attended Archbishops’ Council meetings in a non-voting capacity, and chaired one of its committees, the National Safeguarding Steering Group.
During his tenure, he spoke candidly of the Church’s history of failing survivors, and of the need to fund redress adequately, commenting in 2020 that “whatever it costs, the money will be found” (News, 23 October 2020). In the same year, he announced the creation of what became the Independent Safeguarding Board (ISB), which was intended to hold the National Safeguarding Team to account — taking over this responsibility from the Archbishops’ Council (News, 23 October 2020). The ISB was disbanded and its members sacked in 2023, shortly after Dr Gibbs’s three-year term ended (News, 23 June 2023). The Archbishops’ Council subsequently referred itself to the Charity Commission.
In July this year, the Archbishop of York told the General Synod that he had given them an inaccurate account of the Council’s vote to disband the ISB, at the meeting of the Synod a year earlier. The vote had not, in fact, been unanimous (News, 12 July).
The Wilkinson Review into the debacle, commissioned by the Archbishops’ Council, concluded that the “extreme time pressure” under which the ISB was designed — “imposed principally by the Archbishop of Canterbury” — was a contributing factor in a lack of clarity and effective governance hampering its functioning. In June, survivors who were awaiting reviews by the ISB — known as the “ISB 11” — said that little progress had been made on their cases (News, 11 June).
On Tuesday, Dr Gibbs said that his intervention at the diocesan synod on Saturday marked the first time that he had spoken publicly on national safeguarding matters since completing his three-year term. “I did not want to be getting in the way of my successor, [the Bishop of Stepney] Joanne Grenfell, who I think is doing a fantastic job,” he said. His vote was “in no sense . . . intended to be a criticism of the work of the National Safeguarding Team or indeed the lead bishops for safeguarding. . . I think they are doing everything they can.”
Recent years had seen a “significant amount of change” in safeguarding, he said, from changes to training to the strengthening of the work of diocesan safeguarding teams. “The reality of the Church of England is that things do take a significant amount of time because of the complex nature of the Church and the whole legislative process that sometimes has to be followed,” he said.
But the Makin report was a “watershed moment”, he suggested, which had coincided with the “crucial discussion” on safeguarding independence, set to return to the General Synod in February (News, 12 July). This would be followed by a vote on final approval of the National Redress Scheme, which was “incredibly complex” and had taken “far longer” than he had imagined (News, 12 July).
“In terms of our response to victims and survivors, of course there is still a huge amount of anger and frustration that more hasn’t been done sooner,” he said. But 2025 would be “very significant”.
An update on implementing the recommendations of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which the Archbishops’ Council accepted in full (News, 1 April 2021), is set out in the Council’s latest annual report. It speaks of “good progress”, including the roll-out of a national casework-management system.
Other national safeguarding developments, set out in a paper for the General Synod in July, include altering the role of Diocesan Safeguarding Adviser to Diocesan Safeguarding Officer (with casework decision-making taken by this professional and not by the bishop, as was previously the case) and the delivery of an independent safeguarding audit programme by the INEQE safeguarding group. Following an IICSA recommendation, the Clergy Discipline Measure is to be replaced with a new Clergy Conduct Measure (News, 1 April 2021).
The central recommendation of the Jay Review (commissioned by the Archbishops’ Council) — the creation of two independent safeguarding bodies — remains subject to review, with safeguarding professionals among those articulating reservations (News, 12 July). A final plan for how to reform safeguarding structures is due to be brought back for approval at the February meeting of the General Synod. Among the recommendations of the Wilkinson Review was that “The set up of any new safeguarding body must not be rushed.”
This was “an important lesson to be learned”, Dr Gibbs said on Tuesday. There was a danger that “we jump to what we hope is the solution, when we haven’t worked through all the implications”. Safeguarding must be “embedded” in the life of the Church of England, he said. “We cannot abdicate responsibility for that. And yet there is a need also, clearly, for closer oversight and scrutiny of what we are doing.”
Against a “fraught” backdrop, the key question was: “What will help make us the safest, healthiest culture that we can possibly be?”