MCWOACA: Masterchef and the Makin Review

 

+Helen-Ann Hartley

I suppose it was inevitable that media interest in the BBC’s removal of Masterchef presenter Gregg Wallace should so quickly supersede the resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury. About 5.4 million people tune in watch a Masterchef final whereas only 2 million are likely to attend Church of England Christmas services. And then Gregg gave that extra headline-grabbing gift with his outburst against the Middle-Class Women of a Certain Age who he blamed for bringing him down.  

Kelly Webb-Lamb, founder and chief executive of Mothership Productions, wrote in Broadcast magazine, ‘Can we all just think for a minute about what it means - in this industry - to be a “woman of a certain age”. If you’re still around, it means, that you had years, if not decades, of putting up with “banter”, lewd comments, and often much worse, and didn’t ever say anything because you wanted a good reputation and that next job.’

She goes on to list the difficulties encountered by many professional women and concludes: ‘And despite - or perhaps because – of that, you’ve become tough, hardened, confident, and determined to stand your ground. You have been loud, made yourself seen and heard. You’ve done your time, earned your stripes and just maybe - have a little bit of power. Those of us - those women of a certain age - who are watching what’s happened in the last few days, must take it as inspiration and encouragement. It’s time for us to speak out more. Let’s be honest, there’s an awful lot to say.’ 

Women in that other national institution, the Church of England, have been powerless and invisible since the c16th. Men have simply assumed it is their God-given right to rule. (The Taliban still does.) There were no women priests until 1994: no women C of E bishops until 2015 (2015!!!) These were Sarah Mullally, Rachel Treweek and also Libby Lane. There were already a handful in the wider Anglican communion. One of those, Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley from the Diocese of Waikato in New Zealand, attended the bishops Sarah and Rachel’s ordination service in Canterbury Cathedral. Archbishop Justin Welby presided but the sermon was preached by Adrian Newman, the Bishop of Stepney. He said:

 ‘I hope that women bishops will disturb us. I hope they will challenge the conventions of the Church of England, which continues to be led and directed by too many people like me: white, male, middle-aged professionals.’

It appears that Helen-Ann Hartley was the only person listening. She was the first bishop to call openly for Justin Welby to resign after the publication of the Makin ‘lessons learned’ Review and is currently the only one who says that anyone, still serving, who is criticised in the report, should stand aside now, not continue officiating and preaching until the church’s own response creaks into action in time for the 2025 General Synod.

The Makin Review looked at a particularly brutal male abuser called John Smyth and if I were writing an article, not a blog, I might pause to analyse the inadequacy of the church’s response so far. Helen-Ann (now Bishop of Newcastle) concludes that the C of E safeguarding procedures themselves should be put into Special Measures. If the people who had taken the ‘See No Evil, Hear No Evil’ approach, understood how badly they had failed others, they would have handed in their Permissions to Officiate. Voluntarily. Even former Archbishop George Carey, who had his PtO withdrawn for a few months after being proved to have colluded with another CofE abuser, and who is implicated in the John Smyth cover up, is steadfastly saying that he ‘has no memory’ of these events, so is staying put.

Andrew Graystone has written a book Bleeding for Jesus, which Makin says is to be read ‘by those with strong stomachs’. I haven’t done so, the Review was sufficiently graphic for me.  Francis has been writing articles exposing both abuse and church cover-ups for years. He’s followed the John Smyth case specifically since 2017 and can be heard most recently on the Private Eye Podcast ‘Page 94’ #126.

Bishop Helen-Ann is now being ostracised by her fellow bishops as they wriggle themselves into the more enjoyable pastime of selecting a new Archbishop. This makes me angry. That’s why I’m writing.

In pandemic August 2020, feeling frustration and despair at the enforced separation of people living in care homes from those who love them, Nicci Gerrard and I wrote to all the C of E bishops and as many UK religious leaders from other denominations as we could find. We thought that they might see the ethical dimension in this ban – did Government ministers, public health officials or care home managers have the right to say that husbands and wives, parents and children, committed partners were ‘inessential’ to each other?  We got a lot of out-of-office messages, a number of sympathetic but carefully non-committal answers (former Archbishop Welby’s was a masterpiece in this respect), a few said that the government knew best. Most ignored us.

Only one C of E bishop took any action – and that was the then Bishop of Ripon, Helen-Ann Hartley. She had already spoken on in the issue. She then studied our website carefully, wrote directly to a desperate wife who had told her story there and to all the MPs in her diocese. In April 2021, when people living in care homes were effectively incarcerated by having with 14 days isolation imposed on them if they left the premises, she again wrote to her MPs, to a mother who had contacted her about the plight of her learning-disabled daughter, trapped in her ‘home’ and pledged her support for our legal action. When she emailed in December 2021 to say she’d been taking a carol service in a Ripon care home and had been thinking of us (both our campaign and the individual mother and daughter), it rang true.

Helen-Ann is not only kind to individuals, she's uncompromising on matters of principle and radical in her approach. She has refused to allow the former Archbishop of York John Sentamu permission to officiate in her diocese because of his poor response to a former safeguarding issue. Instead of apologising, he appealed to the Archbishops of Canterbury and York to write and try to persuade her to reinstate him. She found the tone of their email coercive -- so published it.

When one has read through the Makin review with its secrecy and closed circles, such an approach comes as a blast of fresh air. The Iwerne camps, where Smyth's abused victims were initially identified and groomed, were exclusive all-male affairs for boys from the ‘elite public schools’. They were staffed by evangelical clergy and their supporters, and were designed to feed the right sort of man into the future church. ‘Lady helpers’ worked in the kitchens. A significant number of its teenage attendees are ordained C of E priests today.

What a shock it must have been for them when women were not only ordained but some were given authority. A whole separate C of E structure had to be set up to preserve the sensibilities of people who were unable to accept female equality. It still exists. It shouldn’t.

So now the Church’s response to Bishop Helen-Ann is isolation. None of the other bishops are speaking to her or supporting her. Where are the C of E equivalents of those MCWOACA who complained successfully about Gregg Wallace? If they aren’t sufficiently confident to ‘disturb’ or ‘challenge’ within the church perhaps the rest of us should take a little more notice what’s going on? Andrew Graystone described the atmosphere in the House of Bishops as ‘toxic’ in a Newsnight interview just before the Archbishop’s resignation. The interviewer didn’t ask him what he meant. Helen-Ann says she’s fine because she knows she’s doing the right thing. But ostracism is a form of bullying. It’s a safeguarding issue. I think it’s everyone’s business.

'The stance that I've taken is not about me, it's about the victims and survivors.' Bishop Helen-Ann Hartley on BBC Newsnight 5.12.2024