A sermon preached by Bishop Stephen on Safeguarding Sunday, 17 November 2024, at All Saints Church, Swanage.
Why did the Bishop of Salisbury decide to come to All Saints Swanage is the question you are bound to be asking yourselves today – ‘Why us, are we not safe’? I will explain; firstly, because Swanage is one of our favourite places on the planet. Carol and I always choose to come here when there is any doubt as to what to do on our day off. Swanage is in our hearts, although when I said to Jo can I come to you, I didn’t realise that the ferry was going to be having its annual service! So, a little bit more complicated than it might have needed to be. But why here?
Here because I kept Safeguarding Sunday clear because there is always something that comes up, although I hadn’t quite anticipated the week that we have had in terms of ‘something to come up’, but there we are. The reason I wanted to come is to thank you, I wanted to thank you for being a safe place. Only a few weeks ago you made the national news, and you were a safe place at a time of emergency, at a time of crisis. We pray for the families of those who died in the care home and for those still far from home. Of course, what we didn’t know at that time was that you would be called into action and that All Saints would need to be a place of safety and a place of refuge. I chose to come to All Saints today, quite literally and only to say thank you for being able to be open, for being able to respond, and also in particular to thank Jo for being able to deal with the media so professionally in such a priestly way, in such a humble way. You can only imagine the kind of contacts and the sense of uncertainty being on the frontline when you are being interviewed, when events are happening around you and particularly when there is the sadness of death. I'm coming to All Saints to say thank you for being a safe place for the community that it served. Jo – on behalf of your people and behalf of me and on behalf of the diocese, thank you for being a blessing.
This has been a painful week for the Church of England. It has been a painful week from its very inception because what a lot of the media won’t have realised, of course, it is the Church of England that commissioned the Makin report, a report that at the time when it was commissioned it was thought would take nine months to prepare and publish. It took five years because the moment that you uncover a stone and underneath you find pure evil, it is bound to have greater impact, greater complexity, and then and only then victims and survivors of a monster who did things in the name of our Lord come forward and that is why it has taken so long. We knew it was going to be published but it was leaked before the publishing date which also meant that sadly victims and survivors who had prior engagement beforehand became re-traumatised again by something being put out in an unplanned and un-managed way. But then also there is the content which shows just how complex and evil things have been over the last 40 years and every organisation has had this moment. This is our Jimmy Saville moment, this is our Rolf Harris moment, the BBC, the NHS, the Police, schools, many major organisations and institutions have been through this process.
In my time in the church, we have seen a complete change in the way being safe and feeling safe in any membership organisation has changed and we have seen that with our parish safeguarding officers. We see it in a way that safer recruitment processes are now in place. You will all know that things like DBS never existed in our memory and just how much opposition there was to that kind of screening, and it goes all the way back to the Soham murders with the two girls. That is where much of this began.
It also becomes a crisis in leadership when people have either done what they thought was right at the time, or not done enough and those who have deliberately covered up abuse that they would have known was going on in the life of the church. Archbishop Justin took that decision to resign both personally and institutionally in order to stop being the focus of that media discussion. I think he was right to do what he has done and yet sadly, even this morning, the discussion continues and becomes one about culture and relationships rather than about safeguarding itself and I am sad about that as people argue amongst themselves.
We may well ask ourselves, is the church a safe place? For the record, in my view, the Church of England is as safe, or safer, than many other organisations because of the progress that has been made over the years. To have Parish Safeguarding Officers in every one of our parishes is absolutely crucial and absolutely local and, in that sense, this is where it becomes everybody’s responsibility. That is not because the Church has a particular problem, it’s because of what we read in the Bible, it is because of what Jesus teaches us and because of what we have heard in our scriptures, “Love one another as I have loved you”, and that means creating a safe place for all.
Salisbury Diocese was the very first of the dioceses to engage in a new national audit process which began in January this year and still continues. Having an organisation with national credibility, audit and inspect every single diocese and every cathedral, in its safeguarding practice and safeguarding culture is of real value. We decided to go first because there is nothing to hide and we should be confident enough to go first and if there are things to learn then there would be things to learn; many of these audits have been completed since. The conclusion of the audit on Salisbury diocese says this, and you can read the whole report on the diocesan website.
‘This round of audits follows the SCIE and PCR2 processes that began in the diocese in 2015 and in the cathedral in 2019. Salisbury to its credit volunteered to be its first. Whilst there were and continue to be areas for improvement, the positive trajectory across the diocese and cathedral are a testament to their commitment to create an environment where people can come together to visit, work, worship and thrive. During the audit senior leaders demonstrated a willingness to open themselves to direct challenge and provided access to all areas and no questions were off limits. To the cynic this might sound like rhetoric but the real strength in Salisbury is its people. From the leadership teams to the volunteers there is an absence of hubris, no defensiveness and a desire to learn.
Much of this can be directly attributed to the leadership of the bishop. He is a relentless advocate of safeguarding, and his commitment is demonstrated by deeds not just words. However, their greatest overall strength and potential lies in the fact that Salisbury’s safeguarding practice is built on a foundation provided by their in-house professional safeguarding team. A team that has grown in numbers and confidence since 2020. A team that places victims and survivors, the young and the vulnerable at the centre of what they do. Their commitment to the trauma informed approach was palpable. Continuing to invest in their repressive improvement journey will be the key to their success.’
That has what has been said about you. That is what has been said about us, so that when you are having conversations with folk who do not necessarily belong to the Church, you can have a degree of confidence, even in this week, in those that lead you and those that advise us professionally in this diocese in the subject of safeguarding. The task is never finished, the task is never completed. There are always things to learn because that is the nature of human relationships, especially when they go wrong but in a week, when the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the first time in history, has chosen to resign, I hope that through you, I am able to say that Salisbury is doing its best in the name of God.
The words of scripture today guide us through this. In that reading from Ephesians that we have just heard, hear them again but this time in the context of the importance of Safeguarding Sunday.
“For you were once darkness but now you are the light in the Lord, live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness but rather expose them. It is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret, that everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light, that is why it is said, wake up sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you”. Ephesians 5.8-14
Lord, we pray for all victims and survivors of the one whose name I will not mention. You will bring judgement; you will bring care for those abused. Bring amongst us all the light that shines in the darkness, that we may be your people and find out what pleases the Lord. This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Saviour – Amen.