Newsline 26 February 2016

Newsline 26 February 2016

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News, Blogs & Opinion

NSS raises alarm over major flaws in Church’s sex abuse inquiry

News | Wed, 24th Feb 2016

The National Secular Society has warned that the Church's inquiry into their handling of the Bishop Peter Ball sex abuse case could leave significant questions unanswered.

Bishop Ball was jailed last year for sexual offences, after escaping justice twenty years previously. A letter-writing campaign at the time saw support for the bishop come from senior establishment figures, including a member of the royal family.

The Church of England has now announced that an inquiry will look at the case to establish how much senior figures in the Church of England knew about Ball's crimes.

However, the NSS has criticised the terms of reference of the Church of England's review and warned that they do not go to the heart of the failures which contributed to Ball escaping justice for twenty years. In this period one victim committed suicide.

The review will establish "what information was available to the Church of England ... concerning Peter Ball's abuse of individuals; who had this information and when. To provide a detailed timeline and transparent account of the response within the Church of England. To consider whether the response was in accordance with recognised good practice, and compliant with Church of England policy and legislation as well as statutory policy and legislation."

But the review into the case will be carried out behind closed doors. Keith Porteous Wood, executive director of the National Secular Society, warned that "while this may encourage greater frankness of those giving evidence, it will be regarded as lacking openness and transparency, qualities already shown to be sorely lacking in the Church over such matters even today."

The NSS, which has significant history and expertise researching clerical sex abuse and campaigning for justice for the survivors, has warned that the terms of reference need to specifically include the questionable role played by the Church in bringing undue influence to bear on the administration of justice concerning Ball's abuse, and about the bullying of victims and whistle-blowers into silence. The Society has written to the Church of England requesting these changes, which were reported almost in their entirety by the Telegraph.

Mr Wood wrote to the Church of England:

"Could I respectfully request that, in order to make the Inquiry credible, the terms of reference need to make specific reference to establishing the extent of historic and current bullying by senior figures in the Church of alleged victims and whistle-blowers. As is well known, this bullying has led to a suicide and considerable psychological harm beyond the abuse itself.

"The terms of reference need also specifically establish the extent to which Church officials sought – and/or encouraged others - to intervene with the CPS, the police and dissuading complainants from reporting to the police. It is vital that it establishes whether such interventions were made genuinely believing Ball to be innocent, having made a reasonable assessment of all available complaints and evidence. The information already in the public domain raises very uncomfortable questions.

Speaking in the House of Lords in January this year the Bishop of Durham insisted that at the time the Church believed Ball to be innocent, despite the allegations.

Welby says separation of church and state “would not be a disaster”, admits establishment has been abused

News | Tue, 23rd Feb 2016

The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that while he is opposed to the disestablishment of the Church of England, the separation of church and state would not be a disaster for the Anglican Church.

Speaking to members of the judiciary, Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby said that separating church and state by disestablishing the Church of England "would not be a disaster or a great advantage" to the Church.

While the Archbishop was very clear that he would oppose the separation of church and state, he said that such a development would "just be another event in a very long history".

Archbishop Welby claimed that "I think we have learned in the last half-century that establishment is good for the country, a way of serving the country through the parish system."

But he added that if "if we're going to abuse establishment as we have done in the past, then absolutely [the Church should be disestablished]".

NSS campaigns manager Stephen Evans commented: "While the Archbishop clearly doesn't support disestablishment, there are many other religious advocates of separating church and state for the benefit of both. The Church should be able to make its pitch and proselytise in the public square without retaining anachronistic privileges."

The Archbishop also said that the UK "is not a Christian country in the sense that we are all churchgoing, but actually it never was."

"The height of churchgoing in England was in the 1850s, when about 22% of the population would regularly go to church."

Recent projections from the Church of England found that just 18 in 1000 people attend Anglican services regularly, and that this number is expected to drop to around 10 per 1000 population over the next thirty years.

For richer or poorer – where is the Church of England?

Opinion | Tue, 23rd Feb 2016

Is the Church really as poor as it claims? Ed Moore, treasurer of the National Secular Society, considers the extent of the Church of England's considerable wealth.

A recent news item on the BBC web site entitled 'Cash concerns for England's Anglican cathedrals' recently caught my attention and contained the following quote from Andrew Nunn, dean of Southwark Cathedral:

"Very few places have historic funds. People imagine we're sitting on large treasure chests from the past. That isn't the case."

Surely this can't be the true situation? With a history stretching over hundreds of years the Church of England must have amassed enough funds to keep a cathedral in good repair? How much money does the church have?

Trying to calculate the wealth of the Church of England is made difficult by its rather fragmented financial structure. Rather than a single organisation it more closely resembles a franchise, with separately owned and run companies joined by shared marketing and logistics agreements.

The Church of England is divided into three main layers. The national church bodies set policy, provide strategic management and deliver centralised services such as pensions, investment management and payroll. Below this is a management layer consisting of the diocesan companies. Each is assigned a region and given control of all church organisations in that area. Currently there are forty-two diocesan companies under two supervisory areas, York and Canterbury, but this number changes over the years through mergers and splits.

Lastly under each diocese comes the Parochial Church Councils (PCCs). Each council is a separate charitable company with control of one or more churches and a remit to organise members at a local level. Currently there are roughly twelve thousand six hundred such councils but this number also changes over time based on mergers and new church plantings.

The Church of England is funded bottom-up. The PCCs persuade their members to voluntarily 'gift' money and also raise funds via trading and investment activities. The Diocese then asks the PCCs to pass money up. This is the 'Parish Share' and the diocese calculates a figure based on what it thinks a PCC can afford, based on the wealth of each parish. The diocese pressures the PCC to pay up and can shutdown any that fails to meet their target. Any money left over is kept by the parish and can be used locally to support church activities.

Finally each diocese passes a share of their income to the national church, again depending on how wealthy the diocese is. The region retains funds over and above the requested amount.

So how wealthy is the church? To work this out we have to add up or estimate the assets of each individual company in this loose hierarchy. Fortunately the Internet is here and amounts can now be found courtesy of the Charity Commission web site.

The national bodies of the Church of England and the assets each one owns can be listed as:

The Corporation of Church House £27,000,000

The Archbishop's Council £49,282,000

The Church Commissioners £6,739,000,000

The Church of England Pensions Board £1,260,000,000

So that is £8,075,282,000 (yes, billion) to start with.

The forty two dioceses have assets ranging in size from just £8,524,000 at the Diocese in Europe through to £401,000,000 at the Diocese of London. Combined they have a total of £4,317,503,000 plus the Isle of Man's figures which remain elusive.

Now we must estimate the assets of the PCCs. The Church of England stated in 2012 there are 12,600 such bodies so we can take a sample, average then multiply. Using at random:

Parish Of Stratford St John With Christ Church £219,281

Parish Of St Michael And All Angels, Sandhurst £428,828

Parish Of Melton Mowbray £1,213,582

Parish Of Abingdon-On-Thames £1,190,867

Parochial Church Council Of St Nicholas, Harpenden £1,132,503

We get an average of £837,012 per PCC and so an approximate total for all PCCs of £10,546,353,720.

Between the national church, the diocese and the average of the PCCs we end with a total wealth for the Church of England of £22,939,138,720.

But do we now have a total? The truth is it's very hard to tell. As each charity is a separate organisation and there is no single list available of just Church of England charities we only come across new ones by luck. As an example take the Trust For London charity, which manages the London Church Fund. This has assets of £292,003,000. Should this be included? What also of the cathedrals, do they have their own funds? Which brings us to back to our original question.

Andrew Nunn claims to be worried for the future of Southwark cathedral, but the Diocese of Southwark has assets of £231,000,000 and an income of £21,447,000 in 2014. Surely he can use these funds? Alas no, despite Southwark Cathedral being the 'mother church' of Southwark it has no call on diocese funds. The cathedral has been placed in a separate charity called the Southwark Cathedral charity, exempt from listing with the Charity Commission.

Does this charity have money? Yes it does; the treasure chest for Southwark Cathedral currently stands at £17,106,939, plus a further £430,913 in separate but linked charitable funds. Andrew Nunn knows this; he is a charity trustee and member of the finance committee.

With assets of more than £22 billion the Church of England would seem richer than many of us would have believed. Of course if you distribute this money across thousands of charities it can be hidden in plain sight. If you move high maintenance properties into their own separate charities you can also request government support pleading poverty. But is the way a moral church should behave?

Ed Moore is the treasurer of the National Secular Society. The views expressed in our blogs are those of the author and may not represent the view of the NSS.

The numbers used here have primarily been taken from charity Annual Returns for 2014. If you would like a copy of the calculations spreadsheet please contact us.

Call for Muslim women to be better informed about legal rights relating to marriage and divorce

News | Fri, 26th Feb 2016

A report from the Muslim Women's Network (MWNUK) has called for greater efforts to promote women's legal rights, warning that some Muslim men are using marriage and divorce as a "psychological tool against women".

In a document offering information and guidance on Islamic marriages and divorce in the UK, the charity speaks out against parallel legal systems and warns that Muslim women were facing discrimination and psychological abuse.

The report makes a series of recommendations, including reform of marriage law and making civil marriages compulsory prior to any religious marriages.

According to MWNUK, "confusion arises from the fact that British courts can generally recognise Muslim marriages and divorces that were registered abroad. However, Muslim marriages and divorces conducted in Britain are not recognised under English, Welsh, Scottish law or Northern Irish law. This is because we cannot have parallel legal systems and British Muslims are expected to utilise the legal mechanisms available in this country. In reality this means that those in legally recognised marriages have recourse to UK laws while those in unrecognised marriages do not."

The group warn that Muslim women face "multiple barriers" when trying to leave an unhappy marriage. "Pressure from family and community to remain within abusive marriages and to suffer in silence is common because of the perceived stigma of divorce and it being regarded as shameful. Others do not understand the legal status of their marriage and therefore their rights pertaining to divorce."

Even if women do have a civil marriage from which they can obtain a divorce, "Muslim women may also want the reassurance of an Islamically pronounced divorce." But this leaves them at the mercy of religious 'authorities', the campaigners warned, who charge a fee for their services. Many women are prevented from getting this religious sanction depending on the "school of thought, religious sect and personal prejudices of the individuals who deal with their cases."

Some Muslim men refuse to grant a divorce to their original wife despite remarrying, and others threaten women with "an instant verbal Islamic divorce". Some men are "threatening to marry again and commit polygamy."

The report calls on the Charity Commission to ensure Sharia Councils and mosques which are registered as charities and are delivering religious divorce services are complying with the Equality Act 2010

The group has cited several personal testimonies from women affected by the lack of legal protection to women who only have unregistered religious 'marriages'. One woman came to the UK on a spousal visa but was divorced after her husband made her sign divorce documents that she couldn't read or understand. Neither she nor her children receive any financial support from her ex-husband.

One woman, Farmida, became the victim of what she called "a completely sexist procedure and one that is completely biased towards men. Despite providing statements, witnesses and evidence that my ex-husband was violent, abusive, shirked all marital responsibilities, whose behaviour was damaging to my children, I was repeatedly asked to reconcile."

She described being "interrogated" by men at the Sharia Council and was only able to get an Islamic divorce when she received a Decree Absolute. "I felt the Islamic procedure had been pointless as all I needed to do was just obtain an English civil divorce and show them the paperwork and they had to listen. How about the women who have only had the Islamic marriage in the UK? It is not recognised by English law so they cannot use an English divorce to apply pressure."

The report raised a range of other issues related to Islamic 'marriages', including polygamy and the ban on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men.

MWNUK argue that one possible solution "to combat polygyny and also ensure women are financially protected in the event of divorce could be to require [that] all Islamic (and other religious marriages) are not conducted unless a civil marriage has taken place … Punishment for conducting such ceremonies without seeing evidence of a civil marriage could include fines."

Addressing the absolute prohibition on Muslim women marrying non-Muslim men upheld by "all major Islamic schools of thought" that state that "Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men under any circumstances", MWNUK pointed out that some Muslim women were now beginning to challenge the tradition as just "another way of restricting women's freedom."

The author of the report, Shaista Gohir, recently wrote to Birmingham Central Mosque after the mosque's chairman, Muhammad Afzal, claimed that "forced marriage was no longer a problem".

Pope becomes more lenient on bishops over child abuse, again

News | Fri, 19th Feb 2016

The National Secular Society has strongly criticised Pope Francis' call for bishops who moved paedophile priests between parishes to resign and warned that this does not go nearly far enough.

According to the Associated Press, Pope Francis said aboard the papal plane back from Mexico that "any bishop who moves a suspected paedophile priest from parish to parish should resign".

He reportedly referred to child rape as "pederasty" and said that a bishop who "changes parish" for a priest when he "detects pederasty is reckless and the best thing he can do is present his resignation."

The National Secular Society has exhaustively studied the failure of the RC Church to deal adequately with child rape and other abuse in its ranks, including bringing the matter to the attention of the United Nations. The Society's executive director, Keith Porteous Wood, said that guilty bishops should face justice, and not just be told to resign as the Pope suggests.

"The Pope wants to leave it to bishops to resign of their own free choice, rather than forcing them to leave. The decision should not be in the hands of the individual bishop; few will resign of their own free will.

"Last year the Pope was taking a tougher line: he announced a Tribunal to judge such bishops. But even the Tribunal was unsatisfactory; it served only to provide a legitimate disciplinary mechanism for such bishops. Its ultimate punishment was derisory: defrocking. Instead, the Church should have required that such bishops be reported to prosecuting authorities and face imprisonment if convicted; some bishops in the United States have already been convicted."

In September 2015 a report drafted by the NSS into rape, sexual abuse and violence against minors by Catholic clerics was submitted to the UN Human Rights Council. Additionally, an oral statement the Society drafted was read out to the Council.

Religious rules in US Catholic hospitals putting female patients in danger

News | Tue, 23rd Feb 2016

A report leaked to the Guardian has exposed extraordinary risks taken with the health of female patients by forcing them to undergo unsafe miscarriages.

Guidelines from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops forbid termination of pregnancies and state that "Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted."

According to a report by a former health official the implementation of this religious guidance has resulted in serious risks being taken with women's health.

The report, made public for the first time, considers the cases of five female patients from Michigan and accuses Mercy Health, a Catholic healthcare provider, of making women endure dangerous miscarriages instead of providing reasonable medical alternatives.

According to the report, Mercy Health has made what the Guardian has described as "unilateral healthcare choices for … five women without their knowledge or their consent."

Many other cases like this have been reported. In 2010 an Arizona woman suffered "life-threatening complications" after hospital administrators told her that she could not have an emergency termination because the foetus still had a heartbeat, despite just a "miniscule" chance of the foetus surviving.

She was told that continuing with the pregnancy would put her at risk "of severe bleeding and infection" and that she needed to have an emergency termination of the pregnancy but that the hospital would not perform the procedure because doctors had to "abide by the church's ethical and religious directives." She had to be sent to a different hospital, causing a three-hour delay.

Catholic control of American hospitals and influence in the American healthcare system has significantly increased in recent years. Between 2001 and 2011 there was a 16% increase in the number of US hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church.

Doctor Antony Lempert of the UK Secular Medical Forum commented: "These terrible stories of women reportedly denied information, choice and safe medical care highlight the sometimes extreme dangers of allowing religious ideology to usurp good medical practice. The irony that women's lives are devalued and placed at increased risk in institutions premised on religious dogma and claiming to value human life seems lost on the hospitals' standard-bearers.

"The universally-accepted code of medical ethics places patient autonomy, i.e. personal control over what happens to a patient's own body, as the bedrock of good medical practice. Maternal mortality is not a spectre from the past but an ongoing, largely preventable tragedy that accounts for the death of a woman somewhere in the world approximately every 2 minutes. Preventing women from exercising choice about what happens to their own bodies is bad enough in the case of normal pregnancies but when complications arise which place women at increased risk of dying there should be no question that women should be fully informed about the safest, medically-recommended, evidence-based course of action. It would appear that in these cases, the course of action that would ordinarily be recommended by doctors has sometimes not even been discussed with the patient herself for fear of deviating from Catholic doctrine.

"We have seen similar tragedies nearer to home such as the case of Savita Halapannavar, the non-Catholic Irish dentist who died of a protracted, complicated miscarriage in an Irish hospital on 28th October 2012 shortly after being denied a necessary abortion and being told by religiously-motivated healthcare professionals that 'This is a Catholic Hospital'."

NSS Speaks Out

We were quoted this week in the Guardian on alternatives to the current faith-based model of hospital chaplaincy – which sees the NHS funding religious chaplaincy at the cost of £25 million.

Our executive director Keith Porteous Wood was quoted in the Telegraph on the Church of England's inquiry into the case of Bishop Peter Ball.

The NSS' support for a student campaigning to reform collective worship in Northern Ireland was noted by the Derry Journal.