Earlier today, Archbishop Welby’s son, Tim Welby, spoke out about his father’s resignation, saying that his position had become untenable due to the increasing clamor for his resignation. Predictably enough, the trolls came out in force, running interference for Welby and claiming he was taking responsibility for his mistakes.
On this issue, we want to be crystal clear: Welby and anyone defending him are full of BS.
Welby’s claim that he made a mistake is a lie
For starters, Welby’s actions were not a mistake.
A mistake is a misunderstanding or a bad judgment. However, in Welby’s case, he has lied repeatedly about his handling of abuse, including his fabrication, previously reported, that he issued an apology to abuse victim Mat Ineson.
Simply put, that didn’t happen, as there is no evidence of such a letter, either from Welby or Ineson, and the timing of the imaginary apology is inconsistent with events, including the statement of the Church of Engaland (CoE) that an apology would not be issued to Ineson until after a related criminal case, which did not conclude for seven more months. So, in summary:
- Welby has no copy of the letter — even though it involves potential legal liability for the Church of England.
- Ineson does not have a copy of the letter.
- No one we interviewed with direct knowledge of the matter has seen any sign of the letter.
- And now, Welby wants us to believe that he shrugged off church barristers and sent an apology of his own volition.
Not bloody likely.
Thus, Welby not only lied about his dealings with Mat Ineson — he’s lying to us now with his claims that he made a mistake.
Welby’s lies mirror Chilton Knudsen’s lies
Speaking of lies, let’s take a moment to parse Welby’s claims that he never thought to double-check on the alleged reports to police.
For starters, these fabrications sound painfully like Chilton Knudsen’s claim that she vividly remembers calling police about an incident of child sex abuse in the Diocese of Chicago — she just can’t remember with whom she spoke.
But in both situations, we’re left to ask: If you didn’t hear anything back in a week, wouldn’t you contact law enforcement and ask for an update? Or call the victim to make sure their needs were being met and they were receiving proper care?
Thus, even if we take Welby’s claims at face value, he doesn’t even try to claim that he took any action to help the victims.
In other words, no matter how we parse the situation, Welby didn’t give a damn.
Of course, there is a key difference between Knudsen and Welby: Knudsen didn’t get her wrinkly old tail in the wringer until the church got sued. Welby has spent his entire tenure trying to ignore calls for accountability.
In other words, a double pox on Welby, even as we ask, “How stupid does he think we are?”
Culture flows from the top
But Welby’s corruption, and that of CoE, can be determined without reference to Welby’s lies and other specific incidents of misconduct.
In any organization, it is axiomatic that culture flows from the top. In that regard, we have seen hundreds of cases of abuse — sexual and otherwise — in which the CoE has done everything in its power to avoid accountability, silence victims, oust critics, and otherwise protect its reputation at the expense of others.
In fact, as we reported in the Adrian Parry case, the Church of England won’t even act when a person, in this case Parry, who’s been defrocked for abuse in other provinces, starts showing up and pretending to be a priest in the CoE.
The CoE’s refusal to address the Parry situation begs the question: If anyone can show up in clericals and claim to be a priest, how is safeguarding even possible? After all, it’s not like the church can defrock Parry — despite a seeming propensity for teenaged boys. And if Parry can function as a CoE priest, it’s a safe bet anyone can.
And while Parry is now in Saudi Arabia — a place not particularly friendly to persons engaging in sexual misconduct — he is known to have spent four years in Bangkok, a city notorious for child sex trafficking. Yet the CoE is still doing its best to ignore the matter.
Nor are things any better on other fronts. We have been on touch with dozens of victims of the abuse in the CoE, and we have yet to hear anyone say anything positive about safeguarding. Not a word.
The CoE remains abusive, at every level
As to claims that there’s no abuse in the CoE today, that is absolute nonsense.
The whole reason that Welby resigned is that abuse can and does occur every day in the denomination, including by re-traumatizing abuse victims by brushing off their claims, minimizing their claims, and more. This organizational inertia and misconduct is profoundly harmful to victims.
To be clear: The fact there’s even a discussion about the resignation of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, illustrates the depth and breadth of corruption in the denomination. Accused of ignoring 11 separate abuse allegations, Cottrell has been trying to position himself as the go-to person following Welby’s announcement. But he was part of the very same hierarchy that disbanded the CoE’s independent safeguarding commission, even as Cottrell claims he didn’t ignore Dame Jasvinder Sanghera’s concerns.
Instead, Cottrell says these issues were assigned to other safeguarding professionals—even though we have yet to see meaningful results fronm the complaints.
Sorry, Cottrell: Saying these issues went to someone else inbox doesn’t cut it. That’s what leadership is all about. Indeed, addressing abuse and caring for victims should be at the top of any prelate’s list of priorities, but Cottrell couldn’t even be bothered.
Cottrell needs to resign, immediately. And there are multiple CoE officials who should join him in resigning.
Lessons for the Episcopal Church
Meanwhile, members of the Episcopal Church, to the extent they are aware of the uproar in the CoE, invariably adhere to the organizationally narcisstic notion that the denomination has a good handle on abuse, and these issues can’t happen here.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
At the highest level, we have the issues with the Todd Ousley, who falsely tells people that the presiding bishop cannot tell bishops diocesan what to do. That is a fabrication and not supported by church canons.
Additionally, leaders lead by example, and Ousley’s outrageous handling of the Whayne Hougland debacle has caused lasting harm to the denomination and distrust of church disciplinary processes.
As a result, we now are tracking clergy disciplinary cases in which active Episcopal bishops claim that, while the canons say one thing, that’s not actually what the church does. We and other advocates will hold these bishops accountable.
Similarly, we know of multiple cases in which judicatories ad lib by trying to tell Title IV complainants that they must keep complaints confidential. That is unethical, self-serving, and a fabrication. Title IV only applies to clergy, and complainants have a right to tell others about their experiences, regardless of what Title IV says.
Indeed, the only discussion that can and should occur around these issues is to alert complainants that, if they choose to disclose, they may face negative repercussions. But no one has the right to direct a complainant to keep silent.
Speaking of the failure of the CoE to report child sexual abuse, neither Ousley, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, nor retired Massachusetts bishop Alan Gates took action to address the allegations of child rape by Episcopal priest Richard Losch.
That begs the question: If child rape isn’t enough to engender a response — or have these bishops file a police report, what is?
Nor can the Episcopal Church claim it didn’t know about the issues with Losch, as the main Lutheran denomination (ELCA), which is in full communion with the Episcopal Church, filed a formal request for action via its legal department. ELCA also was ignored.
Even worse, Glenda Curry, bishop of Alabama, ignored the case repeatedly and, when forced to confront the matter, lied to law enforcement, claiming that Losch did not have access to children and was not in active ministry. Both claims are facially false; Losch, although retired, served two small parishes near his home.
Similarly, Curry claimed that she could not investigate the case due to the victim’s desire to still be pseudonymous. That’s ludicrous, as Anglican Watch did not know the victim’s real name when we first investigated the case, yet we found compelling evidence related to the case with a few simple phone calls.
Now, following a felony indictment against Losch, Curry has suspended him, and is claiming she’s investigating. That’s BS, as no one involved in the case reports contact from the Diocese.
Meanwhile, myriad other examples of the Episcopal Church sweeping abuse under the rug remain:
- El Camino Real Bishop Lucinda Beth Ashby still refuses to take seriously a convicted sex offender in her diocese.
- Bishop Susan Brown Snook and the Diocese of San Diego are lurching towards a lawsuit over their botched handling of sexual harassment in the diocese.
- Dallas Bishop George Sumner is finally the subject of an active Title IV clergy disciplinary complaint for retaliating against priest Richard Daley for his opposition to sexual harassment of an adult woman. The national church spent two years ignoring the complaint.
- Bishop Paula Clark continues to sandbag Title IV claims of criminal conduct in the form of perjury by priest Will Bouvel.
- The Title IV case against Bishop Prince Singh is going painfully slowly, having not yet even reached a hearing panel.
- Various bishops, including Shannon Johnston, Susan Goff, Alan Gates, Julia Whitworth, Jennifer Brooke-Davidson, and Gayle Harris, continue to ignore felony criminal conduct (perjury, filing a false police report) by Episcopal priest Robert Hiller Malm that occurred both in Massachusetts and Virginia. As of this writing, neither the Virginia nor Massachusetts diocese have referred Malm’s felony behavior to law enforcement, despite calls to do so by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a national advocacy group. (Full disclosure: Malm’s felony conduct was directed at Anglican Watch editor Eric Bonetti.)
The problem of culture
Earlier, we discussed the problems resulting from a culture of corruption in the CoE. The same situation exists in the Episcopal Church.
At every level in the denomination, the church goes out of its way to avoid accountability, transparency, and urgency. These were issues flagged in the report exploring issues around clergy impairment and the Heather Cooke debacle, which also noted that these issues have existed for decades. Yet to date, nothing has been done to fix this problem. Nothing.
Meanwhile, laity and clergy alike brush off abuse, minimize the issues, or try to discredit complainants. Such behavior:
- Undercuts the church
- Incentivizes persons of integrity to leave the denomination
- Demolishes the church’s claim to moral legitimacy
- Discourages efforts to fix problems in the denomination
- Abuses persons already traumatized by the church
Compounding the problem is that far too often judicatories and church members alike regard the only “real” abuse as being sexual abuse. But abuse exists along a continuum, with most predators deploying a wide range of abusive behaviors. Thus, treating sexual abuse as the only actionable behavior allows clergy to engage in a wide variety of abuse, and to do so without adverse consequences.
In short, storm clouds are on the horizon for the Episcopal Church, and we have heard multiple reports of possible criminal investigations into the church’s cover-up of abuse. Church members at every level should look at the uproar in the CoE with a discerning eye, and ask whether the American church isn’t equally culpable.
And whether or not the church eventually faces criminal charges for its refusal to hold clergy accountable, this publication and others will hold the church responsible. As a result, the church will continue to shed members and revenue.
Meanwhile, we demand the immediate resignation of the Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell.
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