THE Archbishop of York is preparing for the primary meeting of the General Synod for the reason that resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The Church of England is currently navigating decidedly choppy waters: internally, there’s painful disagreement on same-sex marriage and the reform of safeguarding, and, externally, the Church’s fame is at all-time low after a series of safeguarding scandals.
Against such a backdrop, what are his hopes for next week’s meeting of the Synod? “There will likely be, I imagine, loads of pain and anguish and anger being expressed for reasons I fully understand and, indeed, share, but I hope that we’ll deal with the changes that we are able to make,” Archbishop Cottrell says. The most egregious recent cases were often about “mistakes prior to now, reaching into the current, where either they weren’t handled adequately, or where we don’t have the processes to take care of them adequately.
“That is all deeply shaming, and it’s fallacious. We need to alter. Having needed to live with it [in the Tudor case], I do know that higher than anyone. So I do know there will likely be some anger, but, actually, paradoxically, that is the Synod where loads of that is coming together.” The agenda offers “an enormous opportunity” for reform.
Governance, process, and policy must be joined up, he insists. “It’s about making them transparent and making them accountable, but I feel it’s also a matter of character. In my prayers, I’ve found myself coming back to the Beatitudes as a key text, and asking myself: What does it mean to be poor in spirit, which I feel means much greater dependence upon God, less dependence on myself? What does it mean to mourn, to lament, which, for me, means really, really listening to the voices of victims and survivors, putting their needs first? And blessed are those that hunger and thirst for what is true.”
He is acutely aware that the Church is facing “deep, systemic challenges”. There are, he says, unacceptable “gaps between the various bits of our processes”. The only solution lies within the Church’s taking collective responsibility because the Body of Christ. “It’s about how we do things, how we govern ourselves, how we discipline clergy, how — whether you’re the Archbishop of York or a curate in a parish — we should always be held accountable.”
What does accountability appear like? “I don’t think any of us quite know. We must work at that. But that’s also, for me, a spiritual thing. I take reckoning and judgement very seriously. I’ll someday give an account to God for my stewardship of the Church, and, due to this fact, in my life on earth as a disciple of Jesus, I would like to be certain that that the Church is a spot of accountability, that now we have the policies and procedures that enable that to occur. It’s not that they don’t exist . . . but that we are able to achieve this a lot better.”
He points out that the Church of England is just not the one institution facing these challenges. “I even dare to hope that folks will see that this Church of England, which has been humbled by these failings, has now develop into a humbler Church.”
He emphasises that he doesn’t need to sound complacent. “I’m troubled by this stuff. But, Sunday by Sunday, I’m going to church. I see the Church of England doing its incredible stuff, day in, time out, week in, week out.” He points to the strides forward in understanding of safeguarding. “Forty years ago, after I was ordained, I had no safeguarding training by any means. Even 21 years ago, as a bishop, there was hardly anything. Now, there’s a parish safeguarding officer in every parish, and a lot progress has been made.”
Is he confident that the Synod will have the option to have productive conversations in the present climate? “I hope so. All I can say is that I don’t need to silence people. It’s vital that, if persons are feeling offended, they offer voice to that anger. But I hope people will do it courteously, and is not going to be seeking to heap blame on certain people or certain groups; relatively, [that they] take collective responsibility because the body that could make the changes that must be made. As well as expressing whatever we want to precise, allow us to not be deflected from that purpose.”
What concerning the recent delay within the completion of the Living in Love and Faith process? “I feel there’ll be some anger. I even have a bit myself, but what I’m focused on is getting it right. I’d find it irresistible to be resolved, because I feel [permitting same-sex marriage] is the precise thing to do under God, but I would like to do it in a way that honours the conscience of those that can’t embrace this. I feel we are able to do this, but getting it right is taking time.”
The alternative is to jeopardise the progress already made. “[But] if I used to be a gay person wanting Prayers of Love and Faith in what we now call a ‘bespoke service’ in church, or a priest getting married to a same-sex partner, I could be deeply, deeply frustrated and offended concerning the slowness of the progress. I completely get it. But my only response might be: I feel God is leading us to a spot where we are able to deliver this stuff in a way that is sweet and godly and holds the Church together. And that’s what I’m committed to doing. I’d find it irresistible to be tomorrow, but I feel it’s going to take a bit more time.”
What concerning the deep divisions on this and other issues? How does the Archbishop try and hold the Church together? “I’ve recently come back from a really moving meeting of the College of Bishops, where there [were] tears and penitence and a deep sharing with one another,” he says. “Yes, in fact, there’s profound and conscientious disagreement. There can be pain, and a way of the entire Church being humbled. But what I also experience is sweet men and women given responsibility inside the lifetime of the Church to shape and lead the Church within the spiritual things which will likely be the seed-bed of the renewal that we want, and wanting to work along with one another.”
We increasingly live in a world of silos and echo chambers, and that results in conflict, he suggests. “It’s a dangerous world. I would like the Church of Jesus Christ to inform a special story: a story where in fact there’s disagreement, but disagreement doesn’t result in division, and really we start to model what it looks prefer to live along with conscientious disagreement.”
ARCHBISHOP Cottrell has been under personal pressure in recent weeks, as calls have been made for his resignation in the sunshine of his handling of the David Tudor case when he was Bishop of Chelmsford (News, 20/27 December 2024). He was — and stays — highly frustrated that he was constrained by the law from acting to suspend Mr Tudor until fresh complaints emerged in 2019. In the nine years previously, he could only put in measures to administer the danger.
“I couldn’t [do anything], and that’s the truth,” he says. “I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I even have to say it was a deeply uncomfortable truth to live with, and I lived with it, throughout my time as Bishop of Chelmsford, and so did my predecessor.”
The mistakes that allowed Mr Tudor back into ministry within the Nineteen Nineties, after being banned for ministry for five years for sexual misconduct in 1989, “simply wouldn’t occur today”, he says. “But that isn’t enough. If we discover people in positions like that, we want to have ways of disciplining them, which we don’t have.”
Did he really call Mr Tudor “a Rolls-Royce priest”, because the BBC recently reported? “I don’t have any recollection of claiming this. And I didn’t hold him up as an exemplar of parish ministry,” he says.
What about making him an honorary canon? “When I arrived, he was already the realm dean, and, I would like to be very clear, I beat myself up over that. That was something that I could have stopped. And, due to a policy within the diocese [at the time], all area deans became honorary canons. I deeply regret that.”
He continues: “Without wanting to sound overly defensive, because we knew the backstory, and since we knew that we weren’t in a position to act, our focus was entirely upon managing the danger [he presented], which is definitely what good safeguarding is about. Good safeguarding professionals within the diocese of Chelmsford were very focused on that, as were others inside the parish with whom we worked.”
He believes that Archbishop Welby “did an honourable thing on behalf of the Church he loves and serves” when he stood down from office. What of his own position? Is he considering resignation? “No. I feel God has called me to this,” he says. “I’ve been very honest about what I’ve done and what I haven’t done, what I would like to learn, what we, the Church, must learn. Actually, because I’ve needed to live with the constraints and the challenges of the things we’ve not yet been in a position to change, I feel possibly I could have a component to play this 12 months in making us a humbler Church, and, due to this fact, a Church that appears and sounds a bit more like Jesus. Part of that’s our penitence, but in addition our accountability.”
Has the recent media coverage inflicted lasting damage on the Church of England? “I don’t think we all know for the time being. But it has most definitely done damage. I feel the broader culture is disgusted by what’s happened. And, in fact, it’s really hard for those of us inside the Church, who love the Church, who serve the Church, to face that; but we must face it.”
To many, this looks like a crisis, he says. “In my very own prayers and reflections. I’m trying to think about it as a kairos moment, one among those moments of reckoning, where we’re recalled to very staple items about what it means to be disciples of Jesus and to be his Church.”
There is, I suggest, a deep weariness within the Church of England: people feel battered. “I do think we want to reset the compass,” the Archbishop responds. “And I find myself, for what’s probably going to be a couple of 12 months, occupying this place where I could have some shaping influence on that. I hope, when it comes to governance, policy, those form of changes we could deliver, lots of them this 12 months, would mean that whoever is the following Archbishop of Canterbury is getting into a Church that’s on the road to becoming a more humble, more joined up, more accountable Church.”
And who might that be? “No, I don’t know who it’s. As I said in my Epiphany letter to the Church of England (News, 10 January), I do think we want to reflect deeply on what we expect. . .
“It’s a tough and uncomfortable job, but all jobs of leadership might be hard and uncomfortable. Despite all of it, I would like to say that I’m the Archbishop of York because I feel God has called me to it. I wish it wasn’t so difficult and sophisticated for the time being. . . But nothing changes the undeniable fact that I feel God has called me to it, and I’ll carry on saying sorry after I make mistakes.
“I feel I ought to be held accountable. I feel it’s right for people to face down after they have made significant personal failings, but I don’t imagine it’s right to scapegoat individuals over matters of collective failing and collective responsibility.
“Rather, we want to work together to make the changes we want to make and, due to this fact, make the job of those that are called to steer us a bit more manageable. All I can promise you is I’m praying for whoever it’s that God raises up and calls, and I’ll look ahead to doing my best to working alongside them and supporting them when that day comes.”
In the mean time, there’s plenty to be getting on with, he says. “I pray every day for our Church and its renewal, its witness to our nation. What God gives us in Jesus is what our world needs. That is what I’m focused on.”
