Dame Sarah Mullally has used her maiden presidential address to Synod as Archbishop of Canterbury to lament the Church of England’s past failings on safeguarding and double down on raising standards.
The address was delivered to members of General Synod – the Church’s parliamentary body – meeting in London this week.
She said the Church had prior to now “fallen tragically short” on safeguarding and that she was “committed to bringing an approach of seriousness and focussed direction to all matters referring to safeguarding in all contexts within the church”.
She said that safeguarding practices within the Church of England should be centred on the experiences of victims and “sharpened by our past failings”.
“This approach should be trauma-informed, put victims and survivors at the center of all we do and be committed to proper independence,” she said.
She continued, “We should be wholly committed to listening to victims and survivors, to independent scrutiny of our safeguarding practices, and to delivering timely and robust trauma-informed processes.
“We should be willing, all the time, for light to be shone on our actions and our decisions. We can only begin to rebuild trust and confidence through openness and integrity.”
It was safeguarding failings that toppled her predecessor, Justin Welby, after the Makin Review held him partly accountable for Church failures in responding to abuse perpetrated by the late John Smyth, who ran Christian camps.
The Makin Review concluded that Welby had didn’t make sure that Smyth’s abuse was reported to police, and that he could have and may have done more to bring him to justice.
Dame Sarah has in recent weeks come under scrutiny herself over how she handled an abuse case when she was Bishop of London. The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, who was interim head of the Church of England following Welby’s resignation, decided last month that no further motion can be taken over the criticism against her.
Survivor N, who made the criticism, criticised the end result in comments to Premier Christian News through which they said it was a “blatant conflict of interest that Stephen Cottrell should judge a Clergy Discipline Measure criticism when he himself is the topic of a CDM criticism in the exact same matter”.
Safeguarding shall be considered by Synod in additional detail on Wednesday.
Elsewhere in her address, Dame Sarah said she wished to approach her latest role as Archbishop of Canterbury with “calm, consistency and compassion”.
She conceded the Church of England and wider Anglican Communion were facing many challenges, but said she was hopeful about reports of individuals returning to Church.
“There is a visual sign of hope within the anecdotal and statistical evidence that, during the last 4 years, people have been returning to church,” she said.
“There are early indications of that rise in attendance and participation having continued last 12 months.
“Of course we should be cautious – these are early figures – however the trend is obvious. People are returning to Church.
“They are finding welcome, friendship, community, meaning and purpose and we rejoice with God in these green shoots of hope.”
Dame Mullally was Bishop of London before her Confirmation of Election at St Paul’s Cathedral on 28 January when she legally became the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury – and the primary ever woman to tackle the role.
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