UNITED KINGDOM
Church Times
by Ed Thornton
Posted: 07 Sep 2012
“DYSFUNCTIONALITY” within Chichester diocese is preventing adequate child-safeguarding, and must be “urgently addressed”, the interim report of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s commissaries, published on Thursday of last week, says.
The archiepiscopal visitation, the first for more than 100 years, is being carried out by a former Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd John Gladwin, and Canon Rupert Bursell QC (News, 30 December).
The Archbishop of Canterbury said in a statement, issued the same day as the report, that there remained “several areas of concern” in the diocese, and that he had therefore decided that the visitation “should continue, and that both safeguarding and appointments matters should be conducted under the supervision of this office until uniformly better practice can be assured”.
The interim report says that “dysfunctionality . . . continues to impinge upon the adequacy of safeguarding within the diocese.” Such dysfunctionality – which includes clerics’ officiating without permission – demonstrates “a failure to appreciate the connection between safeguarding and the proper structures of the Church”.
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