Blog

Safeguarding Sunday 2024

Statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury

12/11/2024

 Having sought the gracious permission of His Majesty The King, I have decided to resign as Archbishop of Canterbury.

The Makin Review has exposed the long-maintained conspiracy of silence about the heinous abuses of John Smyth.

When I was informed in 2013 and told that police had been notified, I believed wrongly that an appropriate resolution would follow. 

 It is very clear that I must take personal and institutional responsibility for the long and retraumatising period between 2013 and 2024. 

 It is my duty to honour my Constitutional and church responsibilities, so exact timings will be decided once a review of necessary obligations has been completed, including those in England and in the Anglican Communion. 

 I hope this decision makes clear how seriously the Church of England understands the need for change and our profound commitment to creating a safer church. As I step down I do so in sorrow with all victims and survivors of abuse. 

The last few days have renewed my long felt and profound sense of shame at the historic safeguarding failures of the Church of England. For nearly twelve years I have struggled to introduce improvements. It is for others to judge what has been done.

In the meantime, I will follow through on my commitment to meet victims. I will delegate all my other current responsibilities for safeguarding until the necessary risk assessment process is complete.

 I ask everyone to keep my wife Caroline and my children in their prayers. They have been my most important support throughout my ministry, and I am eternally grateful for their sacrifice. Caroline led the spouses’ programme during the Lambeth Conference and has travelled tirelessly in areas of conflict supporting the most vulnerable, the women, and those who care for them locally.

 I believe that stepping aside is in the best interests of the Church of England, which I dearly love and which I have been honoured to serve. I pray that this decision points us back towards the love that Jesus Christ has for every one of us. 

For above all else, my deepest commitment is to the person of Jesus Christ, my saviour and my God; the bearer of the sins and burdens of the world, and the hope of every person.

 Archbishop Justin Welby

Statement from the Bishop of London regarding the Archbishop of Canterbury’s resignation

 For survivors of church abuse this period has been – and will continue to be – an immensely painful and challenging time. I know you are deeply conscious of this. Many of you have said how difficult it was to stand before your congregations last Sunday, after the Makin Review revealed the abhorrent crimes of John Smyth and the tragic failures of the Church’s response.

 You will know people in your congregation who have suffered abuse, some of whom have been retraumatised by the inaction or deeply inadequate response of the Church. There will also be victims and survivors of whom we are unaware.

 Given the contents of the Makin Report, and its ongoing reverberations, including the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury today, it will be with a grave sense of responsibility and no little trepidation that we face the next phase in the life of the Church of England. I am conscious that this Sunday – Safeguarding Sunday – will seem more important than ever.

 In this crucial moment, we have the opportunity to recognise our individual and collective responsibility for those in our pastoral care; to lament deeply the history of our Church; and to renew our determination to achieve the rigorous and thorough reset of safeguarding structures necessary to deliver a safer church. 

 Central to this must be a genuinely survivor-focused approach, with independent scrutiny and mandatory reporting. A safe church can no longer remain just an aspiration, and survivors must be key architects and adjudicators of the process to get us there. 

You are very much in my thoughts and prayers as, together, we lament the past and set about the vital task of creating a better future.

The Rt Revd & Rt Hon Dame Sarah Mullally DBE

Notices

• Our next PCC Meeting is on Sunday 24th November immediately after Mass.
• Live Stream of Morning Prayer and Mass has started, so please join us on YouTube (St. Anselm Hayes) during the weekday offices.
• We will start the church’s Warm Welcome on Wednesday, 20th November from 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.
• Please speak to Susan if you would like to attend the Advent Service at St. Paul’s Cathedral on 30th November.
• We are happy to announce that we will start using the English Hymnal on 1st December. We are grateful to David for his generous donation.
• We need volunteers to work as sides people to support the Church Wardens before, during and after worship by welcoming people to church.
• Please support the church generously through your giving at

     stanselm.matthewcashmore.com/giving

Downloads

On The Beaches of Normandy – CIIIR

Eighty years ago, on D-Day, 6th June 1944, our Nation and those which stood alongside us faced what my grandfather, King George VI, described as “The Supreme Test”. How fortunate we were, and the entire free World, that a generation of men and women in the United Kingdom and other Allied nations did not flinch when the moment came to face that test.

On the beaches of Normandy, in the seas beyond and in the skies overhead, our Armed Forces carried out their duty with a humbling sense of resolve and determination: qualities so characteristic of that remarkable wartime generation. Very many of them never came home. They lost their lives on the D-Day landing grounds or in the many battles that followed. It is with the most profound sense of gratitude that we remember them, and all those who served at that critical time. We recall the lesson that comes to us, again and again, across the decades: free Nations must stand together to oppose tyranny.

As the years pass, the veterans of the Normandy campaign become ever-fewer in number. Over the past forty years I have had the great privilege of attending seven D-Day commemorations in Normandy and meeting so many distinguished veterans. Indeed, I shall never forget the haunting sights and sounds of thousands of be-medalled figures proudly marching past into a French sunset on these beaches. Our ability to learn from their stories at first hand diminishes. But our obligation to remember them, what they stood for and what they achieved for us all can never diminish.

That is why I am so proud that we have a permanent National Memorial in Normandy, by which to remember the more than twenty-two thousand service personnel in British units who gave their lives during the D-Day landings and the Battle of Normandy. It was built at the suggestion of a veteran, George Batts. He is sadly no longer with us, but lived to see it built and explained on the day it was opened why it means so much: “We left a lot of mates behind and now I know they will never be forgotten.”

A speech by The King at the D-Day National Commemoration British Normandy Memorial, Ver-sur-Mer, on the 80th anniversary of D-Day

Notices

We have successfully launched the Boys’ Brigade and Girls’ Association. We meet every Tuesday from 5:00 pm to 6:30 pm.

Our next PCC Meeting is on Sunday 24th November immediately after Mass.

Live Stream of Morning Prayer and Mass has started, so please join us on YouTube (St. Anselm Hayes) during the weekday offices.

We will advertise Advent, Christmas and New Year services in next week’s bulletin.

As in previous years, on 14th November at 4 pm, the Hillingdon Council will hold the main event for Hayes Town Centre here in St. Anselm’s. There will be performances from local school choirs, a switch on the church Christmas tree (provided by the Council), and town centre displays by the Mayor.

We need volunteers to work as sides people to support the Church Wardens before, during and after worship by welcoming people to church.

Please support the church generously through your giving at

stanselm.matthewcashmore.com/giving

Downloads