{"id":146110,"date":"2026-06-24T17:32:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T21:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146110"},"modified":"2026-06-24T18:36:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T22:36:25","slug":"church-times-makin-group-critical-that-question-of-seal-of-confession-remains-with-the-bishops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146110","title":{"rendered":"(Church Times) Makin group critical that question of seal of confession remains with the Bishops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>\u00a0&#8220;Strong frustration\u201d that a report on the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/seal-of-the-confessional\">seal of confession<\/a>\u00a0remains with the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/house-of-bishops\">House of Bishops<\/a>\u00a0and has \u201ceffectively been paused for over a year\u201d has been expressed by members of the Task and Finish Group for the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/john-smyth\">Makin report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group has requested that the issue be escalated to the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/topics\/safeguarding\">National Safeguarding Steering Group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The group was established to \u201cscrutinise, challenge and advise\u201d on the Church of England\u2019s response to the 27 recommendations arising from Keith Makin\u2019s review of the Church\u2019s handling of allegations of abuse perpetrated by John Smyth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last year, it reported that all 27 would be accepted \u2014 24 in full, and the other three \u201cpartially\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2025\/7-november\/news\/uk\/all-makin-recommendations-to-be-implemented-three-of-them-partially-says-c-of-e-interim-report\">News, 7 November 2025<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.churchtimes.co.uk\/articles\/2026\/26-june\/news\/uk\/makin-group-critical-that-question-of-seal-of-confession-remains-with-the-bishops\">Read it all<\/a>.<\/p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">\u201cStrong frustration\u201d that a report on the seal of confession remains with the House of Bishops and has \u201ceffectively been paused for over a year\u201d has been expressed by members of the Task and Finish Group for the Makin report.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y7QCdyTY0t\">https:\/\/t.co\/y7QCdyTY0t<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Madeleine Davies (@MadsDavies) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MadsDavies\/status\/2069766074267062684?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">June 24, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote> <script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0&#8220;Strong frustration\u201d that a report on the\u00a0seal of confession\u00a0remains with the\u00a0House of Bishops\u00a0and has \u201ceffectively been paused for over a year\u201d has been expressed by members of the Task and Finish Group for the\u00a0Makin report. The group has requested that<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=146110\">Read more &#8250;<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":794,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[389,635,199,168,435,184,436,177,108,112,124],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-146110","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-church-of-england-coe","category-coe-bishops","category-england-uk","category-ethics-moral-theology","category-ministry-of-the-ordained","category-parish-ministry","category-pastoral-care","category-pastoral-theology","category-religion-culture","category-sexuality","category-violence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146110","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/794"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=146110"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146110\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":146114,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146110\/revisions\/146114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=146110"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=146110"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=146110"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}