Many survivors and our allies have written letters to successive Archbishops of Canterbury and other senior leaders. We cannot hope to include them all here; many are not in the public domain. We include those which have received significant media attention. They all advocate for justice for survivors and call for transformational change to the Church’s structures and cultures.
The entries below are listed in chronological order, to follow the timeline from the first correspondence (top) to last correspondence (bottom).
Ekklesia
Ekklesia
Thinking Anglicans
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/7735-2/
Julian Whiting | The Sunday Times
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/justin-welby-blocked-payouts-to-abused-pupils-h3gb9sx59
Janet Fife | Surviving Church
http://survivingchurch.org/2018/03/25/survivors-reply-to-archbishops-pastoral-letter/
Janet Fife | Surviving Church
http://survivingchurch.org/2018/03/27/janet-fifes-letter-some-reflections/
Surviving Church
http://survivingchurch.org/2020/08/02/neither-here-nor-there
Andrew Graystone | Thinking Anglicans | Also published in Letters to a Broken Church
www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/an-entirely-different-approach-to-survivors-of-abuse/Surviving Church & Thinking Anglicans
51 signatories
The letter complains of “a highly dysfunctional church culture – one lacking in care, wisdom and responsibility – uniformly poor in responses to allegations of abuse”. The writers say that the Church has “no functional leadership in safeguarding” and that claims by the bishops that the church’s safeguarding is on a path of improvement are “insincere and inaccurate.”
http://survivingchurch.org/2022/12/15/open-letter-to-charity-commission-december-2022
https://www.thinkinganglicans.org.uk/charity-commission-asked-to-investigate-church-of-england-safeguarding