Bishop Down

Ironically, as it was pointed out to us at Deanery Chapter today, this coming Sunday is designated Safeguarding Sunday in the Church of England. Some of my colleagues wanted some kind of diocesan statement to be made about the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury that they could share, but although I might allude to it in what I say in any sermons I won't be making any declaration to the parish or even the church as such. Other incumbents found themselves dispirited and concerned for the effect on parish relationships, but my experience is that in so far as people in local communities have any attitude to the Church at all they detach the immediate manifestation of it, the clergy and individuals they know, from anything that might be going on more widely. Haters gonna hate, but everyone else carries on. This generosity is, of course, exactly the phenomenon that benefits abusers - nobody believes the person they know could be wicked - but the rest of us can be thankful for it for now. I will very much let the whole thing lie unless anyone mentions it. 

In general, I wish I could be anything more than wearied and unsurprised by the outcome. It's not that I have no sympathy: were someone to tell me an issue had been referred to the police, I might well assume the police were dealing with it, and move on to the next thing (and there is always a Next Thing onto which to move). It wouldn't make it right, though. If I say that Justin Welby's decision to resign could well turn out to be his best day's work during his tenure at Lambeth Palace, I do so not to be mean or sarcastic, but because I genuinely think the Church will ultimately benefit. It's exactly the dramatic, galvanizing event required to blow the whole thing open, to tip the balance away from power, display, and inertia, and it would not be beyond possibility that Archbishop Justin's will not be the only pointy hat rolling in the dust before too long.