LONDON, United Kingdom (AFP) -The scandal-hit Church of England triggered an outcry Tuesday, after rejecting tough new rules for safeguarding children following a series of sexual abuse cases.
The Church’s governing body voted overwhelmingly to establish an independent central safeguarding team, but with local safeguarding officers staying in their same roles with Church authorities.
A proposal to set up a safeguarding team which would have been entirely independent from the Church and would have included the local officers, was never put to a vote, the Press Association news agency said.
Instead on its second day, the Church’s general synod voted 392 in favour and nine against an amendment for a less independent model, “while doing further work on” implementing a tougher system.
“We have missed the opportunity to say unequivocally to victims and survivors today that we hear their concerns about trust and confidence in the Church,” said leading safeguarding bishop Joanne Grenfell.
The decision is “very disappointing”, said child abuse expert Alexis Jay, on Times Radio.
“It’s retaining control of safeguarding for whatever reason,” she added, saying the “culture of the Church facilitated it becoming a place where abusers could hide.”
The vote at the Church’s general synod comes after months of turbulence, and just weeks after Justin Welby stepped down as Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the world’s Anglican Christians, over the scandal.
Welby announced his resignation in November after the independent probe found he “could and should” have formally reported decades of abuse by Church-linked Christian camp leader and serial abuser John Smyth in 2013.
Smyth, who organised evangelical summer camps in the 1970s and 1980s, was responsible for the “prolific, brutal and horrific” abuse of up to 130 boys and young men, according to the review.
The review concluded the Church of England — the mother church of global Anglicanism — covered up “traumatic physical, sexual, psychological and spiritual attacks”, which occurred in Britain, Zimbabwe and South Africa over several decades.
Stephen Cottrell, who became Archbishop of York in 2020, has temporarily replaced Welby but has also been tainted by scandal.
On Monday, he told the five-day gathering he was “deeply dismayed by our failings”.
He added Tuesday that he supported independence in safeguarding and was “disappointed that the Church is now going to do that in two stages”.
“Victims and survivors of abuse and all those harmed by the church have waited too long for real accountability,” he added.
In December, he also faced calls to stand down over claims he mishandled a sexual abuse case during his time as the Bishop of Chelmsford, in southeastern England.
The Anglican Church is the established state Church in England and dates back to King Henry VIII’s split from the Roman Catholic Church in the 1530s.