LONDON (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Tablet [Diocese of Brooklyn NY]
July 6, 2026
By Aili Winstanley Channer
‘How the Church engages with survivors is not an optional add-on to safeguarding – it is safeguarding,’ Steve Ashley, the chief executive officer of the CSSA said. ‘Their experiences, their voices, their needs must be at the heart of all safeguarding practice.’
Pastoral care for survivors of abuse in the Catholic Church can be a “postcode lottery”, the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) has warned.
The CSSA published its first thematic report of safeguarding across the Catholic Church in England and Wales on 6 July.
The report said “communications, consistency and compassion for survivors” are crucial for safeguarding and called for a “one-Church approach” to end inconsistencies in support for survivors.
The CSSA examined how Catholic dioceses and religious orders in England and Wales engage with and support survivors of church abuse.
This included looking at how church bodies respond to disclosures of abuse, how they communicate with survivors, and how survivors feel about this communication.
They found that while initial responses to survivors from church representative are often compassionate, often they are not sustained, with some survivors reporting a sense of “being dropped”.
The CSSA said that communication is the strongest driver of a survivor’s experience, and poor communication can be understood “as a lack of accountability”.
The CSSA highlighted that survivors experience safeguarding in very different ways depending on where they are, because the Church’s approach is inconsistent across England and Wales.
One survivor described this as “the luck of the draw”: policy, practice, governance, terminology, recording systems and support models all can vary, creating unequal experiences.
The report also found that survivors report clearer explanations and greater confidence when they can approach someone with a dedicated survivor liaison or survivor support role.
On the other hand, when processes are unclear, overly generic or defensive in tone, survivors experience “barriers rather than routes to accountability”.
“A reliance on goodwill of individuals is not enough and there needs to be a shift to a more consistent operating model,” the report said.
It called for the new Strategic Council for Catholic Safeguarding to lead the Church to embed good practice.
Mike Cunningham, chair of the CSSA, said, “For people abused by the Catholic Church, their hurt is profound and life-long.
“We have heard from survivors, how the support they receive can make all the difference between feeling respected and safe, or at worse, having their trauma compounded by bad practice.”
Bishop Paul Mason, lead bishop for safeguarding for the bishops’ conference and Sr Una Coogan, lead Religious for safeguarding for the Conference of Religious, who are also co-chairs of the Strategic Council for Catholic Safeguarding (SCCS), thanked the CSSA for the review and their ongoing work with survivors.
“This will help Church organisations, dioceses and religious life groups to improve, and make more meaningful, their engagement with victims and survivors of abuse,” they said.
They said they were “deeply grateful” to the survivors who have contributed to the review: “Their testimony is a call to deeper listening, honest reflection and continuing conversation in the way safeguarding is embedded consistently across the Church.
“The Church’s safeguarding policies and guidance documents are currently under review and this report and its findings regarding survivor engagement will be taken into consideration during this process.
“Once again, we would like to make it clear that there is an open invitation from the bishops to meet with, and listen to, victims and survivors, so that we can learn from and be guided by their experiences.
“We are committed to continual review and development to ensure our communities are places of safety and sanctuary for all.”