ENGLAND
Christian Today
December 5, 2017
By Mark Woods
One of the Church of England’s most senior clergy has called for a radical overhaul in how the Church deals with issues of safeguarding.
The Dean of St Paul’s, Very Rev Dr David Ison, has spoken out in an article posted on Christian Today and Via Media following high-profile cases where survivors of abuse have revealed their deeply troubling treatment at the hands of Church authorities.
He called for ‘robust structures and practices’ aimed at stopping the abuse of vulnerable people by clergy, urging a change in the Church’s culture to ensure particularly male pastors were enabled to understand issues of vulnerability. ‘An inadequate pastor will be flattered or frightened, or assume that it’s all about me, the pastor, rather than all about them, the person in need,’ he said. ‘If the pastor is also emotionally vulnerable, they can exploit the vulnerability of the person in need who is drawn to them – hence so much emotional and sexual abuse in the church and in other caring organisations.’
Controversially, Ison backed calls for the CofE to set up structures for safeguarding and discipline independent of the bishops, whose ministry he said was ‘compromised’ because they had to administer both pastoral care and discipline.
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