There can be no compromises when it comes to protecting children in church. Too often, however, the church has scandalously backed away from the sort of complete transparency that alone is needed in order to restore trust.
Unless the church does everything in its power to keep its children safe it betrays a sacred trust and winds up complicit in the very evil it has pledged to destroy. So why do churches always seem to be getting it wrong?
Partly it’s a fear of the press. Faced with the prospect of headlines linking the church and child abuse, the temptations to batten down the hatches and sort things out “in-house” are overwhelming. But if the Church of England has anything to learn from the scandals that have rocked the Roman church it is that one mustn’t try and confine the scandal of child abuse to the confessional. The truth will out. And, for the protection of future children, the truth must out.
Predators rely on the attitude that the church, the powers that be I mean, will avoid scandal at all costs. That is, that when they are caught they will be sent merrily on their way with no blackmark on their record, even a good recommendations and a golden parachute.
I am discouraged that too often bishops sweep things under the rug to make it appear nothing amiss happened on their watch. Why do they behave that way?
Finally something to agree with from Giles Fraser.
“But as a parish priest, with over 500 children currently registered in our Sunday school, I have to make judgments that will protect kids this side of eternity.”
What does this figure mean? I’ve never heard of any church in England with that many children in its Sunday school. Fraser’s parish, I believe, is a mid-sized one of two churches. Does he mean the school rolls instead?
Putney does have 2 excellent Church of England schools and 2 fine churches [one where the Putney debates took place] brimming with parents and aspirant parents. Maybe something to do with the 500 figure.
And in this article Dr Fraser is quite right.
He’s just reflecting the legal reality that I understand people in the Uk have to deal with now in any work to do with kids – bureaucratic form filling, lost police checks, mounting expenses.
But I doubt they have 500 kids in their Sunday school. I’m told a lot of parents in England put on a show of religion for 6 months to get their kids into a Church of England school.