(Church Times) In a study commissioned by the C of E Professor Hope Hailey finds “pervasive yet patchy distrust is manifest in different ways across” the church

Over the past two years, Professor Hope Hailey conducted interviews with 20 laity and clergy, who were nominated by “a handful of diocesan bishops”. The focus was on those who “work with varied complexities and challenges in the Church but need to establish high-trust working environments”.

The 49-page review concludes that “pervasive yet patchy distrust is manifest in different ways across the Church”, but that distrust is “most profoundly evident” in “the major and traumatising breaches of trust that have been of deep concern to the General Synod and many inside and outside the Church”.

“Racism, sexual abuse and issues relating to Living in Love and Faith all deeply affect the life and witness of the Church,” it says. “The serious breaches of trust and some of the profoundly inadequate ways they have been responded to, in terms of processes, procedures and decision making, are themselves acute manifestations of a wider culture of distrust.”

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