Justice

BBC Newsnight provides a pulpit for the myth of secular neutrality

August 16, 2018
Archbishop Cranmer
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"The best guarantee of religious tolerance is a well-organised secular state... there is a higher authority; it's called the law," proclaimed author Ian McEwan on the BBC's 'Newsnight', in a homily which went completely unchallenged by journalist Evan Davis (chiming,…

John Smyth dies – just as the CPS gives police go-ahead for his extradition and prosecution

August 12, 2018
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John Smyth, who was accused of the sadistic beatings of young men under the guise of Christian discipleship, has died at his home in Cape Town. This brings to an…

The hypocrisy of outsourcing the death penalty for Islamist extremists

July 23, 2018
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The UK Government has had a longstanding and principled moral objection to the death penalty. Whether you agree with that opposition or not, it has hitherto been applied consistently: under…

The BBC destroyed Sir Cliff Richard, just like the CofE dishonoured Bishop George Bell

July 19, 2018
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Standing outside the High Court yesterday, Sir Cliff Richard cried. He had just been awarded £190,000 general damages against the BBC (infringement of privacy; general effect on his life), plus…

whitewash child abuse singleton report adequate

It is time for General Synod to protest: victims of sexual abuse deserve better than ‘adequate’

July 5, 2018
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Critics of the Church of England’s responses to historic sexual abuse can be fairly generous. Consider the words of David Pearson, founder of the Child Protection Charity CCPAS, who was…

Ethan Couch and ‘affluenza’: where is God in the absence of visible justice?

July 2, 2018
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‘The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers’ (Henry VI, Pt II, IVii). Sure, I know. Some pernickety pedant with a literary bent is going to tell me…

Gosport hospital deaths: when did ‘life shortened’ become a euphemism for murder?

June 21, 2018
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The revelation that more than 450 patients died in a Gosport hospital after being administered an overdose of powerful painkillers is shocking and appalling. Or, in the words of Theresa…

Did Archbishop Sentamu fob off the Clergy Discipline Commission to protect bishops from allegations of misconduct?

April 23, 2018
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As the police continue questioning the Most Rev'd and Rt Hon Dr John Sentamu over his alleged failure to respond properly to a report of clerical child abuse, here's a…

The Syrian civil war will never be resolved by the UN Security Council or the International Criminal Court

April 17, 2018
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This is a guest post by Carl Jacobs. ____________________ The Syrian civil war has not been kind to the sacred secular institutions of International Liberalism. There are now 400,000 dead…

Windrush children: Home Office defames Conservatives, dismays Christians and shames the nation

April 16, 2018
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61-year-old Paulette Wilson (top centre) came to the UK at the age of 10 with her parents. She had sailed all the way from Jamaica aboard HMT Empire Windrush, a…

Nigel Biggar on the degeneracy of academic civility

April 10, 2018
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Professor Nigel Biggar has written for the Times: 'Vile abuse is now tolerated in our universities'. He tells us: "The spitting hatred I suffered over my views on empire shows…

‘Hatred is not needed to stamp out evil’: Martin Luther King (Jr and Snr) remembered 50 years on

April 4, 2018
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Today is the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Dr Martin Luther King, one of the greatest figures of 20th-century America. Inevitably there will be much discussion of his legacy…

Abuse victim: “The cruel and inhuman treatment I have received from the National Safeguarding Team in Church House, and others in the Church of England hierarchy, makes what Peter Ball did to me pale into insignificance”

March 8, 2018
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It has not been a good week for the Church of England. We were warned as much by our Lead Bishop for Safeguarding, Peter Hancock, when he led the safeguarding…

‘Sorry’ seems to be the hardest word: apologetics and apologies in the Bishop Bell case

February 16, 2018
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This is a guest post by the Very Rev'd Professor Martyn Percy, Dean of Christ Church, Oxford. _________ An apology is a written or spoken expression of regret and remorse;…

Church of England bullies George Bell’s elderly niece by denying her choice of lawyer

February 12, 2018
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Just as the General Synod of the Church of England was sotto voce congratulating itself on finally looking at its multiple failures towards its victims, a decision was being made…

Did Lambeth Palace know the ‘fresh information’ about Bishop George Bell before Lord Carlile published his report?

February 5, 2018
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It was all going so well for the George Bell Group and the less well-known Bell Society. The Carlile Report had delivered a blow every bit as devastating as they…

The George Bell saga evidences a CofE legal culture which is not merely incompetent, but predisposed toward deception and injustice

January 25, 2018
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How many times must I forgive my errant brother? St Matthew tells us it is seventy times seven, which, by my reckoning, suggests that Archbishop Justin has at least another…

Justin Welby has staked his reputation and legacy on the maintenance of a profound injustice to Bishop George Bell

January 23, 2018
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There are times when you really, really don't want to write any kind of response to a contentious issue, no matter how burning it may be, not least because by…

How has the Church of England failed to grasp the core finding of the Carlile Report, that a superficially ‘truthful’ complainant might be an unreliable historian of fact?

January 2, 2018
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I don't imagine there are many members of the House of Bishops who are aficionados of American sports, but some might relate to the words of ice hockey legend Wayne…

The year is 2067, and long-dead archbishop Justin Welby is accused of child abuse…

December 20, 2017
260 Comments

It is absolutely shocking. No one ever guessed. No one even suspected. No one knew the darkest secret, the chill in the air, the poison in the communion chalice of…