Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York, isn’t perhaps a typical Church of England bishop. Essex-born, he sounds and looks more like a member of the public than a member of the House of Lords. He’s approachable and likeable, possesses an endearing directness, and his sense of identification with people has earned him a great deal of support and affection.
He’ll need it when he assumes temporary leadership of the Church in three weeks after Justin Welby’s resignation takes official effect. He’s also one of the names regularly being discussed as Welby’s official successor as Archbishop of Canterbury.
Now, however, there are calls for him to step down due to his handling of a sexual abuse case when he was Bishop of Chelmsford in 2010. The BBC’s File on Four claims that Cottrell was informed of “long-standing safeguarding concerns” regarding priest David Tudor but that Cottrell allowed Tudor to remain. Earlier this year, Tudor was banned from ministry after admitting sexual abuse with two girls aged 15 and 16 when he was a priest in the Diocese of Southwark.
Cottrell has responded that he faced a horrible situation when he became Bishop of Chelmsford but that it’s wrong to say he did nothing. “I suspended David Tudor from office at the first opportunity, when a new victim came forward to the police in 2019.” Until then, he says, there were no legal grounds to take any other action.
He argues that he worked closely with the diocese of Chelmsford’s safeguarding team to make sure that the risk was managed. “But it was not possible to remove David Tudor from office until such time as fresh complaints were made, which happened when a victim bravely spoke to the police. Once this happened in 2019, I acted immediately. I suspended David Tudor from all ministry pending the investigation and subsequent tribunal hearing in which he was removed from office and prohibited from ministry for life.”
The Right Rev Helen-Ann Hartley, the Bishop of Newcastle, the most outspoken episcopal critic of Justin Welby’s handling of the John Smyth case, disagrees. “One archbishop has resigned over a safeguarding failure, and now the remaining archbishop has a very serious matter that calls in to question his ability to lead on the urgent change that is required.”
What Stephen Cottrell decides to do is open to question, but what isn’t is that the Church of England’s reputation has been severely damaged in the last few months. Frankly, balanced and informed discussion isn’t always easy around this subject. There are the usual opponents of organised religion and faith claiming the worst, but also clergy and activists within the Church who are roaring. Some of them roar on a full-time basis and aren’t of much help, but there are numerous reasonable people in the Church of England who are angry and even feel betrayed.
The central problem is that the Church is an institution. One founded on the Gospels and dedicated to the work of Christ but still an institution. And institutions by their nature build defences and bulwarks, and the larger they are the more chance they have of inadvertently allowing entry to people who abuse, lie, and cheat. Churches do this, schools do this, corporations do this, sports clubs do this. Anybody who believes that sexual abuse is somehow the preserve of churches simply hasn’t done their research.
The character flaw that proved fatal for Justin Welby
Read MoreWhat makes it worse within religion, however, is the trust that is assumed on the part of members. I’ve written extensively on the abuse crisis within Roman Catholicism and one of the most horrific and oft-repeated lines I heard was from survivors who as children informed their parents and were told, “Father would never do that. What a horrible thing to say!”
The Church of England isn’t the Catholic Church, where the number of cases of criminal obfuscation is shocking, but the Church does appear to have problems with transparency, slowness to act, bureaucracy and safeguarding. Some in the clergy and laity are calling for a full and independent investigation in to the Church’s safeguarding practice, and even for the establishment of a permanent independent oversight in to the Church’s handling of abuse claims. That would mean that the bishops would effectively lose control of the situation, and some of them would be reluctant to allow that to happen.
Yet they’d be wise to consider it. Bishops do work with outside experts but not on a consistent level, and it’s unfair and unreasonable to ask over-worked bishops and their staff who are not professionally trained in these areas to deal with such intensely painful and profound issues with all of their concomitant legalities and sensitivities.
For the sake of the Church and its members, and most of all for the sake of the vulnerable and the abused, something has to change and to change quickly.
Michael Coren is an Anglican priest and author. His latest book, The Rebel Christ (Canterbury Press, £12.99), is out now
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