“Detaching the Church of England’s safeguarding staff from their current employers will almost inevitably create additional barriers to communication and cooperation, harming service delivery. Given that ‘service delivery’ in this context involves protecting children and vulnerable adults, any barriers whatsoever could have the most serious consequences,” the letter says.

“There is no doubt that transferring staff from 85 current employers to one yet-to-be-created employer will be destabilising, expensive, and likely to take far longer than expected,” the letter argues. “No other equivalent organisation in the UK employs its safeguarding staff in a separate body.”

It continues: “The disruption to recruitment and retention of staff, to existing relationships, and to morale would be considerable. Moreover, new structures bring new problems: a large national organisation is at least as likely to multiply layers of management as it is to improve frontline service delivery.”

Read it all.

Safeguarding professionals across the Church of England have urged the General Synod’s members not to back a proposal to outsource their work to a new national body https://t.co/aXrKJSuLfH

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 5, 2025

While it’s true that traditional monasticism is declining in many historic Christian traditions, new monasticism—the contemporary reappropriation of monastic wisdom—is still very much alive. More than that, the movement is gaining a new and growing following among the next generation and is meeting universal human needs that are felt more now than ever.

In our global digital age, many Christians are rediscovering the importance of community, the value of rhythms and routines amid chaotic circumstances, and the need for deeper commitment to spiritual formation. Over the past five years alone, the pandemic, incidents of racial injustice, and the church abuse crisis have led to a wake-up call. We are realizing that it may be worth sacrificing modern comforts and conveniences to live out our highest ideals and potential as God’s people and that we may need to look back in order to go forward.

Some believers have been sensitive to these needs for a long time—people who consider themselves “new monastics” (like me), who are fascinated by the desert elders’ courage to relocate to abandoned places. We are intrigued by the idea of living in a close community and making serious commitments to fundamental values. We wonder if establishing communal rules for life might tame the wild horse of late modern culture and help us better order our lives around the gospel.

Today, this reappropriation is taking the form of devotional apps like Lectio 365, introductory virtual classes on contemplative prayer, repurposed convents in Europe, and prayer spaces in alleyways and financial districts. It looks like Christian university campus houses establishing their own rules of life or communal discipleship programs, and small “colleges” of Christian students attending larger universities. It is happening through globally dispersed organizations like OMS, which takes prospective members through stages of preparation and vow-taking in a digital initiation process modeled after traditional religious orders.

Read it all.

Independent safeguarding was once unthinkable, but today few observers think the Synod can afford to vote down the proposals. Given the revelations of the past few months, it would be approaching institutional suicide for the Church to reject the opportunity to rebuild trust and demonstrate its determination to stop abusers and keep vulnerable people safe.

But in the desperate rush to be seen to be doing something to stop the relentlessly critical headlines, few have considered what independence will not fix. The same people who investigated Perumbalath and concluded there was no evidence he was a safeguarding risk will still constitute the safeguarding team; they will just work for a different employer. Safeguarding cases will still be based on the often-conflicting accounts of the only two people in the room at the time of the alleged incident. There will still be cases that cannot be resolved in the way survivors and their increasingly vocal advocates would like. Who will listen to and support dissatisfied and wounded survivors, if not the Church? And what happens when the independent safeguarding authority clears someone the CofE hierarchy believes to be guilty?

Safeguarding independence will not be an end the Church’s state of permacrisis. In fact, the Synod vote will probably create as many new problems as it solves old ones. The weary vicars wondering when they can stop bracing for the next scandal cannot relax yet.

Read it all.

"If the Church of England was not in crisis before, it certainly is now."

Tim Wyatt: There is no solution to the Church of England permacrisis https://t.co/T7bXLQP72Y

— The New Statesman (@NewStatesman) February 6, 2025

Edgar met Rita on LinkedIn. He worked for a Canadian software company, she was from Singapore and was with a large consultancy. They were just friends, but they chatted online all the time. One day Rita offered to teach him how to trade crypto. With her help, he made good money. So he raised his stake. However, after Edgar tried to cash out, it became clear that the crypto-trading site was a fake and that he had lost $78,000. Rita, it turned out, was a trafficked Filipina held prisoner in a compound in Myanmar.

In their different ways, Edgar and Rita were both victims of “pig-butchering”, the most lucrative scam in a global industry that steals over $500bn a year from victims all around the world. In “Scam Inc”, our eight-part podcast, The Economist investigates the crime, the criminals and the untold suffering they cause. “Scam Inc” is about the most significant change in transnational organised crime in decades.

Pig-butchering, or sha zhu pan, is Chinese criminal slang. First the scammers build a sty, with fake social-media profiles. Then they pick the pig, by identifying a target; raise the pig, by spending weeks or months building trust; cut the pig, by tempting them to invest; and butcher the pig by squeezing “every last drop of juice” from them, their family and friends.

The industry is growing fast….

Read it all.

Online scamming is a vast, sophisticated and fast-growing global enterprise that compares in size and scope to the illegal drug industry. Except that in many ways it is worse. As our investigation finds, nobody is safe from Scam Inc https://t.co/MMKm0TeOIW pic.twitter.com/QIUMvOCjDW

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) February 6, 2025

“The Makin Review already made clear that information about Smyth’s abuse was reported to the police (on a number of occasions) and to ACSA. ACSA’s own review confirms today that they did receive this information from the Diocese of Ely in 2013. While they state that they have not found any evidence of abuse by Smyth within their churches, they do admit that the Diocese of Cape Town’s communication of the danger which Smyth posed between when they were informed of that danger (2013) and when he died (2018) fell short of what the circumstances demanded.

“This is sobering to read. I am glad both that ACSA rapidly commissioned their own review in response to the Makin Review, and that they are now transparent about its findings. We join them in penitence for the failings of our Churches and in redoubling our efforts to care for and listen to victims and survivors, and to take all necessary and possible steps to respond well to all allegations of abuse.”

Read it all.

The Panel of Inquiry into the Anglican Church of Southern Africa's handling of serial abuser John Smyth’s presence in South Africa has noted a disturbing delay in fully implementing measures evolved over decades to grapple with abuse within the church

https://t.co/mHIeJRMche

— Cape Times (@CapeTimesSA) February 4, 2025

Bishop Philip North said: “I’m just devastated, really, that this mess that we’re seeing unfolding since the publication of the Makin review undermines good work.

“Tremendous, heroic work was going on at ground level with parish safeguarding officers and clergy going to tremendous lengths and taking safeguarding seriously.

“I can totally get why trust in bishops is at such a low ebb. It really is at a low ebb. And there are reasons for that. We’ve seen poor judgment. We’ve seen, quite possibly, poor behaviour. We felt trapped, I think quite often, by systems and structures.

“I can’t deny there’s huge reputational damage done to the church at a national level, to the standing of bishops and to the perception of the church and the Church of England, and we feel still to be very much on the back foot, very much on the defensive”.

Asked whether the bishops’ moral authority had gone after the scandals, he said most people had a knowledge of the Church of England through the parish church. Nationally, reputation needed to be restored.

Read it all.

College of Bishops ‘very, very deeply shaken’ by recent events in the diocese of Liverpool, media briefing hears https://t.co/g8xWYE4UZP

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) February 5, 2025

Drawing on focus groups and interviews with 55 clerics, it highlights the extent to which the Church’s wider challenges, from financial deficits to division over the Living in Love and Faith process, are impacting on clergy well-being.

The report notes “the extremely difficult financial situation of many parishes” — described by one participant as “hugely, hugely horrible” — and the “high awareness of stipendiary ministers of the relationship between their stipend and parish finances, via the parish share”. This is, it says, “often emphasised to local churches by dioceses to incentivise them to pay their parish share in full, and, amid the current economic challenges, some participants report that their dioceses are reviewing the viability of parishes that do not do so.”

For stipendiary clergy, this could provoke concern for their parish. One participant described thinking: “If we don’t pay our common fund, then when I move, then are they going to say, ‘Well, you can’t have a vicar any more?’ And I feel the responsibility for that.”

For some, the question of parish share could “provoke a sense of shame within the diocese”. One commented that, when the diocese set out the cost of a stipendiary priest in a parish share request, they were “made to feel really expensive”. There was an assumption that the priest was the recipient of the cost (£70,000).

Read it all.

Always interesting reading latest from the Living Ministry study tracking clergy over 10 years. One finding was the impact of parish share requests on clergy themselves, including feeling "expensive" when the cost of the stipend is set out by the diocese https://t.co/fXiRDNpqJW

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 4, 2025

The Bishop of Warrington, the Rt Revd Bev Mason, has identified herself as the bishop who made allegations of misconduct against the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr John Perumbalath, who resigned earlier on Thursday.

In a letter sent on Thursday afternoon to clergy in the diocese of Liverpool, Bishop Mason, the suffragan in the diocese, writes that, in March 2023, she was advised of a complaint against Dr Perumbalath. The complaint and subsequent investigation “raised what I believe were significant concerns”, she writes, and this “included my own disclosure”.

Dr Perumbalath, announcing his resignation, reiterated his denial of allegations first published by Channel 4 News on Tuesday evening (News, 30 January).

On Tuesday, Channel 4 News reported that an unnamed bishop had made allegations of “sexual harassment”, and described the other allegation — on which more detail was published — as one of “sexual assault”.

Read it all.

BREAKING: The Bishop of Warrington, the Rt Revd Bev Mason, has identified herself as the bishop who made allegations of misconduct against the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr John Perumbalath, who resigned earlier on Thursday. https://t.co/7RYKfuLkid

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 30, 2025

In his own inimitable style, President Donald Trump has identified something he dislikes and approached it with a wrecking-ball. Deprived of American funding by an executive order, aid programmes around the world are on the brink of collapse. But for the intervention of a judge at the 11th hour on January 28th, large parts of America’s federal government might have suffered a similar fate.

However, when it comes to another kind of cutting—of rules, rather than spending—Mr Trump is part of a global trend. From Buenos Aires and Delhi to Brussels and London, politicians have pledged to slash the red tape that entangles the economy. Javier Milei has wielded a chainsaw against Argentine regulations. Narendra Modi’s advisers are quietly confronting India’s triplicate-loving babus. Rachel Reeves, Britain’s chancellor, plans to overhaul planning rules and expand London’s Heathrow Airport. Even Vietnam’s Communists have a plan to shrink the bureaucracy.

Done right, the anti-red-tape revolution could usher in greater freedom, faster economic growth, lower prices and new technology. For years excessive rules have choked housebuilding, investment and innovation. But Mr Trump risks giving deregulation a bad name. His impulse to start by demolishing essential functions of government before reinstating the ones he likes is a formula for human misery and economic harm. The question is how to make reform bold enough to count, but coherent enough to succeed.

Read it all.

Around the world, an anti-red-tape revolution is taking hold. Done right, it could kick-start economic growth. In the wrong hands, it risks giving deregulation a bad name https://t.co/pxJS1MAXDP pic.twitter.com/PhAZtAt7Nq

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) January 30, 2025

Sailing off the south coast of England, the Russian trawler known as the Yantar carried its usual array of hi-tech equipment.

In photographs released by the Ministry of Defence, a large radar dome can be seen behind two masts bristling with antennae.

Officially, these allow the 108 metre-long craft to monitor ocean currents, befitting a vessel the Kremlin maintains is part of its oceanographic research fleet.

But it was the ship’s more nefarious purposes that prompted a rare display of British naval power on Jan 20, when the Yantar was confronted by a British warship, HMS Somerset, and patrol vessel HMS Tyne.

Humdrum though it may appear, the Yantar is known to carry two submersibles that can dive down up to 6,000 metres, allowing their crew to map, monitor and potentially sever the undersea cables that transmit data around the world.

Read it all.

"It's Moscow's usual deep-sea games again"- Huh? Nothing routine about a spy ship lurking near critical infrastructure. This just proves how vulnerable undersea cables really are in modern warfare. #spyship #Russia #UnderseaCables #UKDefense #Geopoliticshttps://t.co/VzwwMSpqVy pic.twitter.com/k0EjAdaAuJ

— Robert Morton (@Robert4787) January 29, 2025

Senior  leaders in the diocese of Liverpool said on Wednesday that the Bishop of Liverpool, Dr John Perumbalath, should step aside from all ministry in the diocese.

Their intervention follows allegations that Dr Perumbalath sexually harassed a female bishop and sexually assaulted another woman — allegations that he denies (News, 28 January).

In a statement sent to the Archbishop of York, the diocese’s Dean, archdeacons, and the chairs of the houses of clergy and laity, wrote: “Having listened to clergy, congregations and staff at the diocesan offices and the cathedral it is with deep regret that the senior leadership of the diocese of Liverpool feel that the position of the Rt Revd Dr John Perumbalath is currently untenable. We believe that the allegations made by the female bishop need to be fully and properly investigated. We also believe that while these proper investigations are conducted the Bishop of Liverpool will need to step aside from all ministry in the Diocese of Liverpool.”

Speaking to Channel 4 News on Wednesday evening, the lead bishop for safeguarding, the Bishop of Stepney, Dr Joanne Grenfell, said: “I think these are serious allegations. They need a proper process to look at them to be fair to everybody involved. But I do think that, while that happens, he [Dr Perumbalath], should step back from ministry to give the Church the space to do that properly.”

Read it all.

“Having listened to clergy, congregations and staff at the diocesan offices and the cathedral it is with deep regret that the senior leadership of the diocese of Liverpool feel that the position of the Rt Revd Dr John Perumbalath is currently untenable."https://t.co/c7nM099SD1

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 30, 2025

The Church of England should develop a strategy to encourage more working-class people into ministry, a private member’s motion is to argue at next month’s General Synod meeting.

Proposed by the Revd Alex Frost, a priest in Burnley who left school at 15 and worked full-time in the retail sector to fund his ministerial training (Comment, Podcast, 26 April 2024), the motion calls on the Ministry Development Board to produce a “national strategy for the encouragement, development and support of vocations, lay and ordained, of people from working-class backgrounds”.

In his paper accompanying the motion, Mr Frost says that working-class people often find it difficult to respond to a calling to ministry because of middle-class expectations and assumptions throughout the Church.

”The first concern should be whether a person is called by God to a given ministry,” he writes. “Whether they have tattoos or a strong regional accent should not be held against them.”

Read it all.

The Church of England should develop a strategy to encourage more working-class people into ministry, a private member’s motion is to argue at next month’s General Synod meeting https://t.co/8ZAXzl6oaw pic.twitter.com/fPHH7yexqQ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 28, 2025

The danger, though, is that at least for some of us, disillusionment can easily give way to cynicism. The cynicism of our moment comes in at least two forms. One is an opportunistic kind of cynicism. This is the kind that determines that no one is really sincere and that the whole world is divided into two simple categories: hucksters and marks. The opportunistic cynic decides, then, to learn how to be a huckster. Anyone who doesn’t is a sucker or a loser, in this view.

That makes things much easier for the opportunistic cynic because, among other things, it gives an immediate intellectual shortcut. One need not actually think about what’s true and what’s false, what’s real and what’s fake, what’s right and what’s wrong. All the opportunistic cynic has to think about is what works. Once the cynic knows who the “friends” and who the “enemies” are, he or she has the template needed to cheer on the right side and to denounce the wrong one.

The other kind of cynicism is instead despairing. If opportunistic cynicism is self-advancing, despairing cynicism is self-protecting. Once I stop expecting actual goodness or sincerity in other people or in institutions, I feel like I can’t be hurt anymore, or at least not hurt as much.

Read it all.

Cynicism protects us from some initial hurt, writes @drmoore.

But in the end, “it filters out not only the genuine danger and fakeness we rightly want to avoid—it filters out everything and everyone.”https://t.co/Rx4z2A8JJc

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) January 23, 2025

‘[Note the]….high honour our Lord places upon marriage. By his presence at the marriage feast, the Son of God said, ‘This is an honourable thing’ (Genesis 1:28; 2:18–25; Hebrews 13:4). One of the first steps toward moral decadence in any society is a low esteem for this ordinance of God. Where there is no sanctity of marriage, there is no regard for God or his law, no regard for moral decency, and no regard for human life. These things stand and fall together!

–Quoted by yours truly in last Sunday’s sermon from Don Fortner of Grace Baptist Church of Danville, KY, who pastored there for over 40 years and died in 2020

The only way for one of God’s elect to become unaccepted is for God to reject his own Son, for we are in him! Until God rejects Christ, he cannot, and will not, reject those who are in Christ. This is our blessed security! ‘He hath made us accepted in the beloved.’ Don Fortner. pic.twitter.com/GtkiuwyJB9

— The High Calvinist. (@SavedbygraceIII) May 23, 2024

Safeguarding dominates the agenda for the first three days of the upcoming General Synod session, a five-day meeting beginning on Monday 10 February. The business will “help with the journey of improvement that the Church of England is on”, the secretary-general, William Nye, told a press briefing on Thursday.

In response to the Wilkinson (News, 11 December 2023) and Jay (News, 21 February 2024) reports, detailed proposals for a new structural model of organisations to deliver and scrutinise safeguarding on behalf of the Church of England, published on Thursday, set out two possible models, which will be put to the vote.

The first would see safeguarding officers currently working in dioceses, cathedrals and the national Church transfer to work for a new organisation. The second would see diocesan and cathedral officers remain with their current employers but most national staff move to a new body. In both cases, safeguarding work would be scrutinised by a second external body.

A motion responding to the Makin report (News, 7 November 2024) comes as early as Monday afternoon, with a presentation and debate on the proposed new structures beginning mid-morning on Tuesday and continuing into the afternoon if needed. 

Read it all.

Safeguarding dominates the agenda for the first three days of the upcoming General Synod session. The business will “help with the journey of improvement that the Church of England is on”, the secretary-general, William Nye, told a press briefing today.https://t.co/bhm38pVuF4

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 23, 2025

Q1: What is the status of global agrobiodiversity?

A1: Today, biodiversity is being lost faster than at any time on record. Since the turn of the twentieth century, the average abundance of terrestrial native species has declined by at least 20 percent across most ecosystems around the world, while the number of crop varieties grown on farms has fallen by more than 90 percent over the last 100 years. Paradoxically, it is the agrifood system itself that is the primary driver of the ecological disruption and degradation imperiling agrobiodiversity around the world.

The environmental impacts of modern food production are myriad. About half of all habitable land on Earth is used for agriculture, while agricultural practices and other human activities have degraded up to 40 percent of the world’s land. Some industrial agriculture has led to the overexploitation of resources that drives habitat loss, the decline in the number of crop species and erosion of crop genetic diversity, and the introduction of invasive species and pollutants—all of which disrupt fragile ecosystems.

In this context, agriculture faces the opposing challenges of increasing food production to meet the needs of a growing global population, while reducing its ecological footprint to ensure that natural resources required for productive agriculture are sustained. In the absence of policies that safeguard agrobiodiversity, efforts to meet food demands threaten to erode the foundation of food production itself.

Read it all.

Agriculture is increasingly strained by growing food demand, global conflict, and the loss of its most foundational resource, agrobiodiversity. This loss threatens not just food security, but global security writ large.

Learn more from @CSISFoodWater: https://t.co/HVUCReVKDW

— CSIS (@CSIS) January 22, 2025

But our need for leaders to show us the way is also because, for humans, actions will always speak louder than words. Most of us have heard of the 7-38-55 rule, publicised by the psychologist Albert Mehrabian: that, in interpersonal communication, words account for just seven per cent of the impact made, vastly outweighed by the tone used (38 per cent) and the accompanying facial expressions and body language (55 per cent).

This makes intuitive sense to anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a weaponised “I’m. Fine!” It’s also why, if you stand outside pointing up at a tower and say “Look at the ground,” everyone will look at the tower, because that is where you are directing your physical attention.

On Christmas Day, the Archbishop of York’s sermon called on the whole Church to “walk the talk” (News, 3 January) and translate its words into action: show me! So, how might contrition be shown? When Mary lavishes nard on the weary feet of Jesus, everyone is outraged. But they get the message, because what is needed to signal a change of heart is highly visible, extravagant contrition. And, today, this needs to come from the top — specifically, from the House of Bishops, whose collective silence has been deafening.

Read it all.

Why do few people believe that the Church of England’s leaders are truly sorry? Machiavelli helps to explain why, writes @evepoolehttps://t.co/pxacXxxdTu

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 17, 2025

While few modern proponents of doctor-assisted death would argue that sick people should “make way” when their lives become a draw on others’ resources, they don’t appear to believe this—inevitable—outcome should prevent the practice from being legalized. This troubling attitude goes against the U.K.’s historically Christian approach to dying people, including the belief that every person has intrinsic value, and every life ought to be equally cherished and protected.

Every single one of us has been or will be a “burden” on others. When we are young, we depend upon the care and provision of our parents. When we grow ill, or elderly, we require support from our family and friends. This is not a bad thing; to be human is to be dependent. When it comes to helping those with terminal illness, properly resourced palliative care is highly effective at mitigating suffering and ensures that every patient hears a loving message: “It’s good that you’re alive.”

U.K. politicians must ask themselves what kind of society they want to create: One where an individualistic “right to die” sees vulnerable and marginalized Britons confronted with the option of suicide and pressured to pursue it; or a society where suicide is never viewed as a fitting response to suffering, where every citizen is recognized to have intrinsic and equal value, safeguarded from harm, and offered compassionate, life-affirming support.

As the Canadian ethicist Ewan Goligher noted: “A nation’s laws are a teacher.” Legalizing assisted suicide teaches society to doubt human value and to see it as merely extrinsic and conditional. Prohibiting it reflects the true depth of human dignity.

Read it all.

It’s Good That You’re Alive https://t.co/n78pfTOVXG “As the Canadian ethicist Ewan Goligher noted: ‘A nation’s laws are a teacher.’ Legalizing assisted suicide teaches society to doubt human value and to see it as merely extrinsic and conditional”

— David Mulroney (@David_Mulroney) January 17, 2025

We need a radically different solution. The way forward that I propose for our consideration and debate is one of “Truth and Accountability”. Backed by a comprehensive and generous redress scheme, such a process would be modelled on approaches such as those of the Hillsborough Inquiry (News, 3 November 2017), the Anglican Church of Canada’s examination of abuse in its residential schools (News, 8 January 2016), and the experiences of post-apartheid South Africa.

The Church’s version would need to bring together those who have been so hurt with those whose mishandling of their concerns has done so much to traumatise and reabuse them. Its aim would be to enable a series of humane encounters where all the lies and extenuating circumstances of the past would be laid down in an environment designed to enable vulnerability and truth. The aim of such an approach would be to enable transparency and light, the establishment of facts, and an honouring of the stories and experiences of those who have been denied justice for so long.

The remit of this work would not be to investigate those suspected guilty of acts of poor ethical intent or that fall under the criminal law — that is the job of the disciplinary process and/or the police. Rather, it would be to hear, investigate, and explore actions of omission, deficient process, and the deliberate exercise of “learned helplessness” which have compounded the original abuse of survivors over time.

Those called to account would do so in the knowledge that admission of their omissions, misdeeds, and shortcomings would not result in their prosecution or defenestration, being sued, or cancelled. Rather, the aim would be to bring them face to face with a justice that would promote their learning, repentance, and change, enabling them to become the strongest voices for doing things differently next time.

Read it all.

"The way forward that I propose for our consideration and debate is one of 'Truth and Accountability''".https://t.co/qA0JWjDKzJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) January 15, 2025

Referring to the prevalence of suicide and how “huge efforts” are being made “to try to prevent people feeling despair and feeling that they have no other choice but to take their own lives”, Archbishop Martin said, “I find a profound contradiction between that and the idea of assisting somebody to take their own life at any stage during their life.”

He noted that fears and concerns regarding the introduction of assisted suicide were voiced to some extent during the lead up period to the Westminster vote.

“In Ireland we need a very careful reflection on this.” He expressed disappointment that the Dáil “seemed to be rushing to adopt what we [the Irish bishops] believe was a flawed report of the Oireachtas Committee just before it broke up for the election.”

“It gave me some consolation to see that none of the parties appeared to be making the introduction of assisted dying in Ireland a manifesto issue and therefore I feel that none of the parties have actually a mandate now to proceed on this issue.”

“I really do feel that our concerns about the slippery slope, how this issue invariably gets expanded and increased as time goes on, which we see from other countries, is something we should reflect long and hard about.”

Read it all.

Archbishop ‘very disappointed’ over assisted dying vote https://t.co/2kBwTtpM9A

— Eamon Martin (@ArchbishopEamon) December 23, 2024

A priest accused of child sexual abuse, who had paid a settlement to one of his alleged victims, was reappointed twice as an area dean in the diocese of Chelmsford, the BBC reported on Sunday, leading to renewed pressure on the Archbishop of York, who was the diocesan Bishop at the time.

On Monday of last week, a BBC investigation was published about actions taken against David Tudor, a priest accused of child sexual abuse, who was Team Rector of Canvey Island, in Chelmsford diocese, when Archbishop Cottrell was the diocesan bishop (News, 16 December).

In his response to the initial investigation, Archbishop Cottrell said that until new allegations about non-recent abuse were made in 2019, “there were no legal grounds to take alternative action,” but in 2019 he “acted immediately” to suspend Mr Tudor.

A police investigation did not lead to any charges (News, 19 August 2022), but Mr Tudor was subsequently prohibited from ministry for life under the Clergy Discipline Measure (News, 15 November).

Read it all.

A priest accused of child sexual abuse, who had paid a settlement to one of his alleged victims, was reappointed twice as an area dean in the diocese of Chelmsford, the BBC reported on Sunday, leading to renewed pressure on the Archbishop of York, who w… https://t.co/YUsJpOfGvB

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 23, 2024

Why? A believer myself, I’ve spent weeks talking to my fellow faithful and to clergy at all levels, trying to find the answer. St Paul distilled Christianity down to three things: faith, hope and love. In my many discussions, I found plenty of the first, although little agreement about what it was placed in; not much of the second; and the third, well, it was in short supply.

I came away thinking that, for the CofE, this really might be the end of days. The first horseman of this coming apocalypse is the ugliest: the church’s hideous record of abuse.

We’re talking about the case of John Smyth, an evangelical Christian whose sadistic sexual beatings brutalised more than 100 young men over four decades. It was the Makin report into the case that forced Welby to resign when it revealed that he had known Smyth for decades and had failed to report the case to police when he was made aware of allegations in 2013.

Read it all (registration or subscription).

Scandals, schism and decay: is the Church of England doomed?

Justin Welby and others have left in disgrace and the gaps between factions are widening. Stephen Bleach meets vicars across the country to see if the institution can be saved https://t.co/jjTE0Fuk5s

— The Times and The Sunday Times (@thetimes) December 22, 2024

THE Bishop’s Council of the diocese of Truro has written an open letter calling for “real change” to safeguarding.

In a letter sent to churches and schools in the diocese, and published online on Wednesday, the council — which includes the Acting Bishop of Truro, the Rt Revd Hugh Nelson — endorse the Bishop of Newcastle, Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, describing her recent action as “prophetic”.

“Over the last three weeks the safeguarding failures of the Church of England have been laid bare yet again. We are hearing clearly from survivors and victims of abuse in this diocese and beyond that the national church response is causing intense pain,” the letter begins.

The signatories, which along with Bishop Nelson comprise the Archdeacons of Bodmin and Cornwall, the Dean of Truro, and the chairs of the diocesan board of finance, House of Laity, and House of Clergy — say that it they “join our voice to Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley’s prophetic call for us to be a different sort of church.

Read it all.

Diocese of Truro calls for ‘real change’ to safeguarding https://t.co/hGdCpo6Sa3

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 20, 2024

Other churches across South Carolina were left feeling stuck after the decision. One Midlands church was also in the midst of the “discernment” process, and even had a majority committed to leaving, when the decision came down and “pulled the rug out from underneath us,” according to one church member who asked to remain anonymous because she didn’t want to be identified as speaking out against the conference.

She said the church had almost slept through the 2023 exodus, which didn’t affect their church community, but became more aware once the 2024 general conference approved the ordination of openly gay clergy and allowed the celebration of same-sex marriage.

“There are basically a lot of people in churches who don’t understand what goes on in their denomination, and we got caught with our head in the sand,” she said. “We didn’t realize what was going on, and trusted leadership to make us aware of the friction had been growing for years. … We were kind of sheltered.” While the conference marriage vote was the catalyst, she said her fellow worshipers had become become weary of and disillusioned with the United Methodist hierarchy.

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SC Methodist churches thought they had time to decide to stay or go. The door slammed shut https://t.co/ckTJSDMQHE

— The State Newspaper (@thestate) December 18, 2024

“I know there are other bishops who felt the Archbishop of Canterbury should resign because I spoke to them in the days before,” [Bishop Helen-Ann] Hartley, 51, says. “So when I made the initial call, I fully expected one or two colleagues to come out and say, ‘we agree with the Bishop of Newcastle’. When, instead, there was this wall of silence, I was pretty exposed and did feel frozen out.

“I had a few private contacts, ‘hope you’re OK’, ‘just let me know if you want a cup of tea’, ‘thoughts and prayers’ but I really wanted colleagues — some colleagues at least — to speak out publicly to support my interventions.”

Confident, engaging and thoughtful, with a ready smile, Hartley confesses to feeling “a degree of vulnerability” after recent events. So much so that, in London this week to attend the House of Lords, she has been avoiding the Bishops’ robing room.

“I don’t feel able to go into the Bishops’ robing room at the moment on my own. You might say that’s an overreaction but I don’t feel confident enough to go into that room with colleagues present. So I’ve asked for my robes to be moved. And I’m really sad that’s the case but I have to look after myself in this too. I hope it’s temporary.”

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“The next archbishop has to … deal with the systemic issues of dysfunction both in the institution & its central capacity, but also in the House of Bishops in terms of cultures around power, privilege & entitlement that persist”https://t.co/9KKWui8SAe

— HouseofSurvivors (@HseofSurvivors) December 13, 2024

A single cell.

A global business worth billions.

A trade that can bring rewards—or human costs that cannot be measured.

The human egg is a precious resource, exchanged in markets open, gray or black. To tell its story, we follow a teenage girl in India, lured into selling her eggs; a model in Argentina whose genetic makeup is prized; a mother in Greece, told by police that her eggs were stolen; and two “egg girls” from Taiwan who have put themselves at risk to earn money in the US.

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Women around the world are increasingly part of a very human global supply chain.

In @BW investigation, we learned how they’re paid—and sometimes exploited—in the multibillion-dollar fertility industry. I made this key takeaways free to read:https://t.co/ax7Nco65xc

— Marika Katanuma (@marikakatanuma) December 13, 2024

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.”

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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 https://t.co/NEXbzaYMoz

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 11, 2024

Now that Mr Assad has fled to Moscow, the question is where will liberation lead. In a part of the world plagued by ethnic violence and religious strife, many fear the worst. The Arab spring in 2010-12 taught that countries which topple their dictators often end up being fought over or dominated by men who are no less despotic. That is all the more reason to wish and work for something better in Syria.

There is no denying that many forces are conspiring to drag the country into further bloodshed. Syria is a mosaic of peoples and faiths carved out of the Ottoman empire. They have never lived side by side in a stable democracy. The Assads belong to the Alawite minority, which makes up about 10-15% of the population. For decades, they imposed a broadly secular settlement on Syrian society using violence.

Syria’s people have many reasons to seek vengeance. After 13 years of civil war in a country crammed with weapons, some factions will want to settle scores; so will some bad and dangerous men just released from prison. Under the Assads’ henchmen, many of them Alawite and Shia, Sunnis suffered acts of heinous cruelty, including being gassed by chlorine and a nerve agent.

Syria’s new powerbrokers are hardly men of peace. Take the dominant faction in the recent advance. Until 2016 Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. Its founder, Ahmad al-Sharaa, had fought the Americans as a member of Islamic State (IS) in Iraq under the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani. HTS and Mr Sharaa swear they have left those days behind. If, amid the chaos, such groups set out to impose rigid Islamic rule, foreign countries, possibly including the United Arab Emirates, will bankroll other groups to take up arms against them.

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The fall of a tyrant must be celebrated. And while Syria faces great uncertainty, a nation exhausted by war could yet choose the long road towards peace. Here is how https://t.co/RMkRxpiWW8 pic.twitter.com/nWqNYtt8Nx

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 12, 2024

Christians are not alone in valuing life; many Jews, Muslims, and other people of goodwill also affirm the intrinsic goodness of human life. But there is a distinctly Christian conviction at work here, and it is bedrock to our faith: Every human being, from conception to death, is created by God, loved by him, and stands under his protection. 

The claim that innocent human life is inviolable is not primarily a claim about us humans, then, but about our Creator. To murder (or torture or enslave, as the church father Gregory of Nyssa saw as early as the fourth century) is to trespass without authority, to assert rights where one has none. It is to unsay God’s “very good” spoken over a fellow creature, to reject and despise a man or woman whom the Lord has brought into being and for whom Christ died. Inviolability is the upshot of our creation in the divine image. 

Unlike many topics in theology and ethics, this is not an issue on which the church has ever been ambiguous. There were no early church councils to debate the taking of innocent life. It didn’t take centuries of conflict to adjudicate. On the contrary, Christians were known from the start for their adamant rejection of pagan disrespect for those unwanted by their families or deemed socially useless—the unborn and newborn, disabled and elderly. 

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Why do Christians oppose euthanasia?

Brad East’s answer:https://t.co/cviFstiPVB

— Christianity Today (@CTmagazine) December 11, 2024

In a glass-walled conference room in San Francisco, Newton Cheng clicked a button on his laptop and launched a thousand copies of an artificial intelligence program, each with specific instructions: Hack into a computer or website to steal data.

“It’s looking at the source code,” Cheng said as he examined one of the copies in action. “It’s trying to figure out, where’s the vulnerability? How can we take advantage of it?” Within minutes, the AI said the hack was successful. 

“Our approach worked perfectly,” it reported back.

Cheng works for Anthropic, one of the biggest AI startups in Silicon Valley, where he’s in charge of cybersecurity testing for what’s called the Frontier Red Team. The hacking attempts—conducted on simulated targets—were among thousands of safety tests, or “evals,” the team ran in October to find out just how good Anthropic’s latest AI model is at doing very dangerous things.

The release of ChatGPT two years ago set off fears that AI could soon be capable of surpassing human intellect—and with that capability comes the potential to cause superhuman harm. Could terrorists use an AI model to learn how to build a bioweapon that kills a million people? Could hackers use it to run millions of simultaneous cyberattacks? Could the AI reprogram and even reproduce itself?

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Meet the "Frontier Red Team" at Anthropic, trying to push their latest AI models to do catastrophic things — in order to stop them before it's too late: https://t.co/HBqGx58Vfd via @WSJ

— Sam Schechner (@samschech) December 11, 2024