CLAIMS that churches are involved in a “conveyor belt” of baptisms to support asylum applications have been rebutted by the Archdeacon of Auckland within the diocese of Durham, the Ven. Rick Simpson.
In Febuary, the Home Affairs Committee heard evidence from a former Church of England priest, the Revd Matthew Firth, who repeated claims that he had made within the media about witnessing a “conveyor belt” of cases, by which asylum-seekers were being baptised in order that they might say that they risked persecution if deported (News, 16 February).
Mr Firth was Priest-in-Charge of St Cuthbert’s, Darlington, between 2018 and 2020, before leaving the C of E to turn into a minister within the Free Church of England.
Giving evidence to the committee, he said that he had been approached every two to 3 weeks by groups of six or seven asylum-seekers who desired to be baptised, but had turned them down, after which they didn’t attend church again.
In written evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee, dated 5 April, and published on the Parliament website last weekend, Archdeacon Simpson questions Mr Firth’s claims. The Archdeacon’s evidence is predicated on interviews with people conversant in the church, and statistics on baptisms before, during, and after Mr Firth’s tenure.
The numbers referred to by Mr Firth would suggest that, over a two-year period, there had been about 284 people approaching him for baptism, Archdeacon Simpson writes. He says, nonetheless, that “no else involved with St Cuthbert’s in 2018-2020 recognises this picture, or anything approximating to it”.
He refers to an article published in The Daily Telegraph in February, by which Mr Firth was reported to have referred to “around 20 cases where failed asylum-seekers sought baptisms at his church to support their appeals for leave to stay within the UK”.
The Archdeacon asks: “Which is Mr Firth alleging: that the number of people that had a primary failed asylum claim after which sought baptism at St Cuthbert’s was ‘around 20’, or that it was c.284?”
A lay minister who was present at many of the weekly office-hour sessions at which baptism bookings were made is quoted by Archdeacon Simpson as saying that, on one occasion, 4 or five asylum-seekers got here, but that this was a one-off.
People involved within the church’s work supporting refugees told Archdeacon Simpson that, over the two-year period, roughly 30 to 35 asylum-seekers attended the church at one time or one other.
Mr Firth told the committee that he had discovered a permissive approach to baptism when he had arrived at St Cuthbert’s, and had set about to vary this.
Archdeacon Simpson writes, nonetheless, that individuals who arranged baptisms during that period told him that that they had at all times had a “rigorous” approach to baptism, even before Mr Firth’s arrival, and that they “then continued to act diligently, as that they had before, though some wondered why Mr Firth didn’t take a greater personal interest and role on this”.
Archdeacon Simpson’s evidence also describes Mr Firth’s assertion that he was a “whistleblower” as “deepy problematic”.
“The first time that Mr Firth brought this matter to the eye of anyone it was to not a senior church leader but to the Daily Telegraph, and this was six years later, in 2024. . .
“Why did a minister who claims he was encountering a whole bunch of suspicious baptism applications, and who says that he believes senior church leaders must have taken motion about this matter, not at any time report this to those leaders in order that they might each pay attention to it and take steps to handle it?”
Mr Firth, and members of the Home Affairs Committee, didn’t reply to requests to comment.
After giving evidence to the Home Affairs Committee hearing in April, the Bishop of Chelmsford, Dr Guli Francis-Dehqani, told the Church Times that she thought the “negative rhetoric” around refugees “goes to be damaging to the lifetime of a few of our faithful church communities, who try to supply support and pastoral care to essentially vulnerable people” (News, 15 March).
