Marina Hyde concludes her powerful piece about the archbishop of Canterbury’s demitting address to the House of Lords with the observation that mandatory reporting should be a legal requirement (Farewell, then, Justin Welby. Good to see that you have already forgiven yourself, 6 November).
Appended to her article online was a list of organisations that victims can contact for support. It would have been useful to include the addresses of ministers and MPs who could enact this, and other benefits for the protection of children and child victims who have grown up, if they legislated on the recommendations of the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse (IICSA).
The IICSA, at which I was a core participant, took more than seven years and reported over two years ago. Not one recommendation has been implemented by the government. There has been no progress on this in either the Home Office or the Ministry of Justice – the latter closed a further unnecessary consultation in July but has yet to publish any response whatsoever.
Stephen Bernard
Author, Paper Cuts: A Memoir
• Justin Welby’s opening remarks in his resignation speech had the second row on the bishops’ bench in the House of Lords laughing and snorting as he “jokingly” portrayed the insecurity of his portentous office. By contrast, the traumatised victims of Welby’s incompetence – abused in a church organisation – looked on stunned at his comedic performance. Similarly, other non-clerics witnessing the scene found the archbishop profoundly unfunny, commenting on his “self-absorption”.
This nauseating spectacle has passed, thank goodness. Now is the time for the resignations of those bishops who, like Welby, failed to act against a child abuser. Let there be a clutch of vacancies to make way for the promotion of priests who, in their ministries, demonstrate organisational abilities, spiritual qualities, pastoral competence, safeguarding, courage and effective compassion. The church urgently needs such in the highest offices if it is to stem the decline of its congregations.
Graham Murphy
Liverpool
• No matter how “wholehearted” Justin Welby’s apology was for his shocking farewell speech, the victims of John Smyth’s abuse will find it hollow (Justin Welby apologises ‘for the hurt’ caused by farewell Lords speech, 6 December). He did not even mention those who had suffered, putting his efforts instead into provoking laughter among his audience of peers. Such callous indifference shows more clearly than a library of reports why this man was unfit for his great office.
Disdain and indifference towards the weak and vulnerable are disgraceful in a Christian leader. His performance should certainly rob him of the life peerage usually given to archbishops of Canterbury on their retirement. And now there must be a question about whether he should even have continued permission to officiate as an Anglican minister.
Francis Bown
London
• Marina Hyde’s powerful article on Justin Welby’s appallingly flippant farewell to the Lords hits many nails squarely on the head. If the Church of England is to survive it must, where possible, bring to account anyone who was complicit by their silence in the John Smyth case. That is the very least it must do, and all those who suffered abuse and worse from that evil person deserve no less. Beyond that, the calls for the “lords spiritual” to lose their seats must be answered, and the matter of disestablishment must be brought forward.
Richard Noyce
Welshpool, Powys
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