THE Archbishop of York, giving his presidential address firstly of the General Synod’s meeting in London on Monday afternoon, pleaded to be given time to steer the Church of England out of its safeguarding crisis.
Having headed off an attempt by one member to forestall him from delivering his presidential address, the Archbishop apologised again for failures, and insisted that he might be trusted to steer the Church back into calmer waters before the appointment of the following Archbishop of Canterbury.
“I do know that trust has been broken and confidence damaged. And I’m more sorry about this than I can say. I do know mistakes have been made. I do know that I actually have made mistakes. But I’m determined to do what I can with the time given to me to work with others.”
In recent weeks, some Synod members on social-media and other platforms had urged Archbishop Cottrell not to offer the presidential address, in view of the calls for his resignation over his handling of the David Tudor safeguarding matter while he was Bishop of Chelmsford (News, 20/27 December 2024).
There had also been rumours of a planned walk-out, but this didn’t materialise. Sam Margrave (Coventry) proposed a procedural motion to maneuver to next business, before the address. He argued that, until an investigation into the Archbishop’s safeguarding record had been accomplished, it could be “improper” to offer him a platform. “It shouldn’t be weaponising, nor am I being rude,” Mr Margrave said. “This is about sending a message to the nation and the Church.”
The chair, the Bishop of Dover, the Rt Revd Rose Hudson-Wilkin (Canterbury), ruled that there could be no debate on the motion. Before putting it to the vote, she quoted a verse from Psalm 30: “God’s wrath endures however the short while, his favour endures for a lifetime.” God could use people despite their brokenness, she said, making reference to St Paul and Moses.
Members voted by 239 to 73, with 43 recorded abstentions, against the motion.
Before he began his formal address, Archbishop Cottrell said: “I’m not pretending we aren’t in difficult or difficult times. Words alone cannot bring across the change we want. We need words made flesh: embodied actions.”
Geoff Crawford/Church TimesSam Margrave (Coventry) moves his procedural motion
He then handed over to the Bishop of London, the Rt Revd Sarah Mullally, who, alongside one among the chairs of the House of Clergy, the Revd Kate Wharton (Liverpool), and the vice-chair of the House of Laity, Alison Coulter (Winchester), led a litany of lament, prayer, and silence.
“If we are saying we now have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the reality shouldn’t be in us,” Ms Coulter said.
Bishop Mullally asked God’s forgiveness for the Church’s failures, for “sins of negligence and ignorance, for self-deceit and colluding with falsehood, for complacency and an absence of vigilance”.
After a sustained period of silent reflection, she closed the litany by leading the Synod within the Magnificat. Bishop Mullally, like Archbishop Cottrell and a number of other others across the chamber, wore a blue ribbon on her lapel — a nod to Mary’s song — as a “commitment to magnifying unheard voices” of girls within the Church. The initiative, Magnify, has been organised by the Revd Chantal Noppen (Durham).
Archbishop Cottrell told the Synod that the Church of England needed help each from God and from safeguarding professionals. “God is asking each of us to be honest about our failings.” Everyone, he said, including himself, must learn from this and be “subject to proper processes of accountability”.
Members, he said, should look ahead to “a Church where things are done properly . . . where we bridge the gaps between safeguarding, discipline, conduct, and HR, and where we’re then able, because we live in a world of such hurt and confusion, to show our attention away from ourselves and toward the needs of the poor, the lonely, the dispossessed, the hurting, the abused, and the neglected.”
Judgement should be tempered with mercy. As Bishop Mullally had written within the Church Times that morning, he said, “I feel that, for this reason, our policies and processes on earth, on this Church, must be accountable, fair, and transparent. But we should be merciful as well, for we’re all sinners in need of God’s grace, we’re frail human beings who often get things improper.”
Sometimes people must be faraway from public office, or taken through criminal proceedings, but all the time this must be done with compassion and mercy, he said.
The Church needed true reconciliation, and mustn’t shrink back from difficult conversations. The Synod must conduct its business with “grace, mercy, honesty, determination and love”, in order that it may lead the Church “for the sake of this nation and the world”.
Archbishop Cottrell was committed to this, he said, because he loved and believed within the Church of England, with all its 1000’s of colleges, parishes, chaplaincies, recent worshipping communities, foodbanks, youth groups, choral evensongs, after-school clubs, and prayer on the streets.
“Because I like the Church of England, I’m deeply dismayed by our failings, laid bare by the Makin review and by other recent stories of shocking abuse,” he said.
This Synod was a probability to get the Church back on target, he suggested, referring to Tuesday’s coming vote on safeguarding independence. “Whether you’re a PCC member, licensed lay minister, parish priest, or, yes, the Archbishop of York, proper accountability, independent scrutiny, and transparency is in everyone’s best interest.”
Many victims and survivors of abuse had run out of patience with the Church, he said. The Synod must reply to the crisis with “actions, not only words”.
“We must work together for these changes before the following Archbishop of Canterbury occupies what I do know can a be a lonely and difficult vocation. Archbishop Justin did an honourable thing by standing down. As we remember his service to this Church and nation, and the numerous good things that were achieved during his time in office, let’s not squander the chance this emptiness creates to be a greater, more accountable, more transparent, more Christlike Church.”
