HAVING trained in psychiatric social work, Simon Robinson has, since his ordination, spent most of his career at Leeds teaching applied and professional ethics, first as chaplain at Leeds University and then as a Professor in the Business School of Leeds Beckett University. Now semi-retired, he is well placed to write a timely book on integrity in the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches in Britain, both of which have experienced a dramatic crisis in public perception. In both, scandals involving gross child abuse, fierce debates about homosexuality, and episcopal cover-ups at the highest level have tainted them badly. Many people, apparently, regard them more as hypocrites than as moral exemplars.
Of course, even Chaucer referred disparagingly to clerical abuse. It is not new, especially among supposedly celibate RC priests, but it is now reported widely even in The Times and the BBC. Anglicans also face an ongoing embarrassing gap at Lambeth Palace (whereas cardinals in Rome elected a new and exciting Pope with alacrity) and a shamed Archbishop at York. Integrity this is not.
Robinson uses his experience of many secular organisations to suggest what professional integrity is or, at least, should be: “integrity is focused on identity, involving responsibility for critical self- reflection, mutual accountability . . . and shared responsibility for embodiment of response to the self and other. At its heart is holistic narrative and dialogue which engages plurality and complexity.”
To explore integrity, he offers three case-studies, the first RC and the second and third Anglican. The first involves egregious child sexual abuse and episcopal cover-ups in Boston and Ireland. He notes that the cover-ups followed policies set by Popes John Paul II and Benedict which emphasised the importance of avoiding “scandal”: i.e. protecting the Church rather than the victims or survivors (although in reality it has resulted in huge compensation costs to the local Churches and a loss of integrity or members, “largely because the church had forgotten how to ask questions of itself, that is, its leaders and members . . . foreclosing dialogue, and unable to engage responsibility and accountability”.
This contrasts with the second extended case-study, Desmond Tutu’s heroic attempt to bring truth and reconciliation to post-apartheid South Africa. Robinson acknowledges that there was much criticism at the time that Tutu had been too soft on unrepentant perpetrators. But he argues that Tutu was properly representing the “plurality and complexity” of the situation by engaging in “critical self-refection” and peacemaking. Such costly integrity is not easy.
A similar conclusion is reached about the third case study, the Church of England’s long process of reflection on sexuality and same-sex marriage. Once again, many have been critical of this, regarding it as inappropriate and tiresome. Yet, perhaps Living with Love and Faith really is “a shared journey focused in listening carefully to different voices and to different disciplines”.
There is much more in this careful and wise book. There are too many lists for my liking, the price of the book is outrageous, and Professor Robinson could have used less jargon. But these are just moans. This is a book written by an expert for Churches to absorb peaceably in a changing and complex world.
Canon Robin Gill is Emeritus Professor of Applied Theology at the University of Kent.
Exploring Integrity in the Christian Church
Simon Robinson
Palgrave Macmillan £119.99
(978-3-031-65686-6)
Church Times Bookshop £108