The Church of England has announced that the Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs will take up the role in June.

She will be tasked with engaging younger people, enhancing community support, and increasing church attendance.

Currently, she is the parish priest for three rural churches in the Chelmsford Diocese and leads a team of ministers responsible for 14 parishes around Chipping Ongar.

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ANNOUNCED TODAY
The Revd Canon Samantha Brazier-Gibbs has been appointed Archdeacon of Ipswich & Director of Inspiring Ipswich. Samantha is presently Vicar of Blackmore St Laurence and Stondon Massey Ss Peter & Paul with oversight of Fyfield St. Nicholas, diocese of Chelmsford. pic.twitter.com/spox6S1spE

— Rich Henderson (@archdeaconrich) March 9, 2025

War broke out in August and in September 1914 Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy wrote these words in his parish magazine:

“I cannot say too strongly that I believe every able-bodied man ought to volunteer for service anywhere. Here ought to be no shirking of that duty.”

This from the man who would, before long be writing this, “Waste”:

“Waste of Muscle, waste of Brain,
Waste of Patience, waste of Pain,
Waste of Manhood, waste of Health,
Waste of Beauty, waste of Wealth,
Waste of Blood, and waste of Tears,
Waste of Youth’s most precious years,
Waste of ways the Saints have trod,
Waste of glory, Waste of God–War!”

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Delighted to be speaking on Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy at the Wantage Literary Festival on Sunday 21st @wantagelitfest pic.twitter.com/6O9REbmPks

— Linda Parker (@lindamparker56) October 18, 2018

The Synod’s failure to vote for such an approach, but to prefer more time to explore the legal and logistical barriers to outsourcing diocesan safeguarding teams while simultaneously creating a new, independent scrutiny body, was, Mr Myer said, “deeply disappointing”.

The decision, he said, “did not follow the recommendation from Professor Jay and many other specialists and professionals, or the preference of many survivors”.

Two separate surveys have suggested that about three-quarters of the victims and survivors questioned supported Professor Jay’s recommendations; but her advice was not supported by all safeguarding professionals.

Jim Gamble, the head of the INEQE Safeguarding Group, which is auditing all Church of England dioceses and cathedrals, was among those to disagree with Professor Jay. In a report published the day before the Synod’s debate, he wrote: “When it comes to delivering effective safeguarding practice — practice that genuinely works and makes a difference — it is most effectively delivered from within, not imposed from without”….

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In a House of Commons debate on Monday evening, MPs criticised the General Synod’s decision last month not to outsource all safeguarding functions immediately to an independent body https://t.co/phh7IAy7FJ

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) March 6, 2025

A review of Winchester Cathedral identified “significant failings in leadership and management”, the Bishop of Winchester, the Rt Revd Philip Mounstephen, said on Monday, when a summary of the review was published.

The Dean, the Very Revd Catherine Ogle, has announced that she will immediately hand over leadership of the cathedral, before her previously announced retirement on 1 May. The Vice-Dean, Canon Roly Riem, is to take charge of implementing the review’s recommendations, many of which, Dean Ogle said, were “already under way”.

In a statement, the Dean apologised on behalf of the Chapter to “everyone who has been hurt by the events of the last few months”. The Chapter, she said, had to accept “collective responsibility”, but, as its leader, she was stepping back.

Bishop Mounstephen said that “no one person is entirely to blame.” He also sought to emphasise that Winchester was not a “failing cathedral”, and that the reviewers had found “much to celebrate”.

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It's difficult to understand exactly what happened at Winchester Cathedral, but review refers to failures of management & a “culture of secrecy, due to a misunderstanding of appropriate confidentiality and the aversion of key individuals to conflict”. https://t.co/E7rFLuvkoG

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) March 4, 2025

John and Charles Wesley are among the most notable evangelists who ever lived. As young men, they formed a party which came to be derisively called Methodists, because they methodically set about fulfilling the commands of scripture. In due course they learned that works cannot save, and discovered salvation by faith in Christ. Afterward, they carried that message to all England in sermon and in song. John Wesley is credited with staving off a bloody revolution in England such as occurred in France.

Although the brothers did not set out to establish a church, the Wesleyans and the Methodists are their offspring.

Both preached, both wrote hymns. But John is more noted for his sermons and Charles for his hymns. Here we present two hymns by Charles and a sermon by John.

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Today the Church of England celebrates John and Charles Wesley, Evangelists, Hymn Writers, 1791 and 1788

Image: The Wesleys Conversion window (1924) in Wesley's Chapel, London, via https://t.co/h7sBybQMrR (see ALT) pic.twitter.com/rZa0pUTduM

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) May 24, 2024

Ten members of the clergy, including two bishops, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth, if the President of the Tribunals permits the National Safeguarding Team (NST) to bring complaints under the Clergy Discipline Measure (CDM) out of time.

They include a former Bishop of Durham, the Rt Revd Paul Butler, and Lord Carey, a former Archbishop of Canterbury.

The announcement, made by the NST on Tuesday, concludes a four-stage process considering the actions of clergy named in the Makin review of Smyth’s abuse (News, 5 December 2024). The review culminated in recommendations by a panel; and these were reviewed by an independent barrister.

The Church House statement said that the panel had “considered the safeguarding policies and guidance which were in force at the relevant time, the facts of the particular case, the relevant legal considerations and whether there is sufficient evidence to justify proceedings”. The barrister had concurred with all of the panel’s decisions.

Read it all.

NEW: Ten members of the clergy, incl Lord Carey and Bishop Paul Butler, could be subject to disciplinary proceedings in connection with the abuse perpetrated by John Smyth. I've had a look at the ten, & context for bringing such complaints under the CDMhttps://t.co/6xdMFl6x9v

— Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) February 25, 2025

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Archbishop Ben Kwashi, Bishop of Jos, General secretary of Gafcon:

Our priorities-

The primacy of scripture
The power of salvation to transform lives
The priority of evangelism and mission pic.twitter.com/0CU803Fxvi

— Gafcon (@GafconGBE) April 17, 2023

Members of the General Synod heard a debate brought by Burnley vicar Father Alex Frost, calling on the Church of England to be ‘bold and ambitious’ in its work to attract people from working class backgrounds to lay and ordained vocations.

He told the General Synod that ‘Jesus called the working class to be his apprentices’ and reminded them that the Disciples Andrew, Peter, James and John, were fishermen.

He said: “In many urban areas of our country, the Church of England ministry is vital. On the ground, in working class communities, there is some wonderful and outstanding work going on, that is fighting injustice, that is saving lives through foodbanks and community projects, that is educating children and standing up for the most vulnerable people in our society.”

But he added that in spite of this, “the Church of England in many places is speaking a completely different language.”

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General Synod backs strategy to encourage working class vocations#Synod https://t.co/yMhoph1kJ3

— General Synod (@synod) February 12, 2025

“Where does Jesus want to take us in the adventure of discipleship? Where does Jesus want to take us in the adventure of discipleship?

Every word in that question is carefully chosen. I want to focus in on that little word, adventure. Most of us don’t think of discipleship and following Jesus as an adventure, but the Bible does.

There is a great moment in Jeremiah early on in the story. Jeremiah has been called, and the Lord has known him since he was in his mother’s womb. But things have gotten started, and there have been ups and downs, and Jeremiah feels like there’s been more downs than ups. And he’s getting tired. So he prays to the Lord, and he basically says, This is getting too hard. What do you think you’re doing? Can you make it a little easier? And the Lord responds in this way, chapter 12, verse 5. If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you, how will you compete with horses? And if in a safe land you are so trusting, what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan, (where there may be things like lions roaming around)?

“Eugene Peterson wrote a whole book on that verse and that theme. Its title is Run with the Horses, the quest for life at its best. That is the way that discipleship has been understood in the tradition that’s handed down to us. An incredible adventure, a breathtaking life of excitement and thrills, an unpredictability, a life which is full of deep purpose and faith.

Oh, it sounds like our Lord even. The glory of God, Irenaeus once said, is a human being fully alive. Well, if you want to know what God wants for humanity, look at Jesus, he’s fully alive, all the time. He’s giving life, he’s living life, he’s being life, he’s life incarnate. That’s what God wants for us.

Jesus says it this way in John 10, verse 10. I came that they might have life and have it abundantly. You all with me so far? Okay, so here’s the question. How do we do that? How do we get that kind of life? How do you live a life that is an adventure of discipleship? All right, well, I appreciate you asking a question. Turn to Luke chapter 5 and this magnificent story of the miraculous catch of fish…

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🚶 where will your adventures take you today?

📍 Richmond Park

📸 James Kliffen pic.twitter.com/KbSmZp3QxB

— The Royal Parks (@theroyalparks) February 11, 2025

Every week, behind a half dozen security doors that lead to Unit 2—Tennessee’s death row—Kevin Burns holds a worship service. He leads Communion, prayer, liturgy, and a sermon with men who share his sentence.

Burns, 55, has been on death row at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville for 30 years, convicted of felony murder in two young men’s deaths in 1992. A group that included Burns robbed another group and shot Damond Dawson, 17, and Tracey Johnson, 20. This particular murder charge, felony murder, applies to those present during an inherently dangerous crime even if they did not kill. Burns maintains his innocence in their killing.

For years, Burns has led Bible studies and prayed with other men on death row, going on to become an ordained minister in 2018 and start The Church of Life within prison walls.

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The Church of Life might be the only congregation planted on death row by a prisoner serving a death sentence.https://t.co/9RSgYKZMtE

— kate shellnutt (@kateshellnutt) February 10, 2025

“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.”

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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

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.

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"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

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.

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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).

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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

You may listen directly here: You may listen directly here:

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#Candlemas is also known as the Feast of the Presentation of Jesus Christ.

The Sienese painter Duccio placed the Presentation at the centre of the predella of the huge altarpiece commissioned for Siena Cathedral in 1311. pic.twitter.com/FcKwEpIJ5k

— The Visual Commentary on Scripture (@TheVCS) February 2, 2025

We have no respect for a surgeon who goes in but does not cut deeply enough to cure nor a patient who backs out of an operation because it may hurt; yet people can go through their whole lives attending church, listening to searching exposures of human sin, without ever taking it to themselves, or meeting anyone with skill and concern enough to lay the challenge right in their own laps.

—Experiment of Faith (New York: Harper&Row, 1957), p.22 (emphasis mine)

In 1955, Newsweek named him one of the ten greatest preachers in the United States and a year later, January 20, 1956, he was named "Man of the Year in Religion" by the Pittsburgh Junior Chamber of Commerce. His successful leadership resulted in his being offered rectorships TK

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) January 31, 2022

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”.

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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

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.”

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“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

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. 

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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

Phillips Brooks died on Monday, 23 January 1893, at the age of 57. On the day of his funeral, 26th January, Boston came to a virtual standstill. “The Boston stock exchange many of the business houses of the city closed from 11 o’clock until two, “reported the New York Times, “and brokers and clerks swell the throng that blackened Copley square“ in front of Trinity Church and filled the surrounding streets. Brooks’s body had lain in state on the west porch of the church since 8 AM while 15,000 mourners filed by.

–John Frederick, Wolverton , The Education of Philip Brooks (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), page 1

"Topical preaching may be interesting but it grows unsatisfactory because it does not fasten itself to the authority of Scripture. It tempts the preachers' genius & invention, but is apt to send people with a feeling that they have heard more from him than God"
–Phillips Brooks pic.twitter.com/xDvPmswNa2

— Expositors Collective (@expositcllctv) January 20, 2025

Disciplinary action against individuals criticised in the Makin report is to be considered by a panel including a lawyer known for his work prosecuting Rochdale grooming gangs, it was announced on Thursday.

The lawyer Nazir Afzal will sit as one of the three decision-makers on a panel also comprising the Church of England’s National Director of Safeguarding, Alexander Kubeyinje, and a former Director of People at Croydon Council, Barbara Peacock.

Mr Afzal is also chair of the C of E’s National Safeguarding Panel (NSP), which offers independent scrutiny and guidance to the Church’s National Safeguarding Team, led by Mr Kubeyinje (News, 13 September).

The announcement from Church House on Thursday says that Mr Afzal’s work on the new panel “is separate [from] and independent” of his position with the NSP.

Read it all.

Disciplinary action against individuals criticised in the Makin report is to be considered by a panel including a lawyer known for his work prosecuting Rochdale grooming gangs, it was announced on Thursday https://t.co/qwJzYxSbsy

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) 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

I agree wholeheartedly with Revd James Dudley-Smith's letter to the editor in this weeks @ChurchTimes pic.twitter.com/GJ9TIkrWGx

— Revd Paul A. Carr (@revPACman) January 11, 2025

“Happy Christmas, that’s what they say in England. I’ve always loved it. Happy Christmas. I have a simple question for you. What does Christmas actually mean? Gonna go right down the middle of the plate, right for the jugular this morning. What does it actually mean? And can I just start out by observing with you that we’ve been given a tradition, we stand on the shoulders of people who’ve come before us, they’ve given us the church, the church has a liturgical calendar, and in the wisdom of the church and the liturgical calendar, Christmas is a 12-day season. Sometimes it even has two Sundays like this season. And the reason it’s a 12-day season is because it’s so super significant, we need time to fully try to think through some of what it means, which is what we’re going to try to do this morning. So here’s what I’m going to say. That it happened, how it happened, and why it happened. What does Christmas mean? It happened, how did it happen, why did it happen? You all with me? All right, ready, set, go. First of all, that it happened….

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London's National Gallery has restored Piero della Francesca's Nativity. The painting is unfinished and was damaged in the past: notably the faces of the two shepherds on the right have been erased. 1/3 pic.twitter.com/r6BiFjebmU

— Rembrandt's R👀m 🖌 (@RembrandtsRoom) December 22, 2023

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

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.”

Read it all.

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

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Bacchiacca (1494 – 1557)
Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness pic.twitter.com/6CXlpnuAiE

— Solas (@solas_na_greine) June 15, 2024

Almighty God, our sure defense: We give thee thanks for thy servant Frederick Howden Jr. and all military chaplains who provided comfort and inspiration in time of battle; and, following the example of Jesus the Good Shepherd, laid down their lives in the service of others. Inspire and strengthen us, also, for the duties of life still before us, that we may be faithful to the end; through the same Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord. Amen.

Today the Episcopal Church commemorates Frederick Howden, Jr., Priest and Chaplain of the Armed Forces, 1942 https://t.co/s2tLUovdkP

Photo courtesy of https://t.co/KplMBQE1V4 / The Names Project, via https://t.co/o8XiuXBT2W pic.twitter.com/SsjOOAfNKO

— The Anglican Church in St Petersburg (@anglicanspb) December 11, 2023

The “atmosphere of blame and guilt” that has followed publication of the Makin Review is creating a culture of fear that encourages cover-up, the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Revd Philip North, warned this week.

He spoke of “real fear in the local church” among clergy and parish safeguarding officers (PSOs), who needed reassurance about their practice, and of the importance of creating a “no-blame atmosphere, where we are asking not who but why, where we are all looking to improve in an atmosphere where we won’t be hung out to dry.

“I regret this atmosphere of blame and guilt that has followed Makin and is being stirred up by all sorts of people including some of my colleagues, because it creates a culture of fear, and and a culture of fear encourages cover-up,” he said on Tuesday. “Whereas, for good safeguarding, you need a no-blame culture.

Read it all.

Clergy are scared of a culture of guilt and blame, says Bishop of Blackburn https://t.co/hKcPNAe9Dg

— Church Times (@ChurchTimes) December 7, 2024