66 recommendations for CofE Safeguarding change. 66 makes us one off the Mark of the Beast. 66 ….. just one of the embodiment of evil. Yet again another completely excoriating report into our safeguarding culture in the Church of England 66 recommendations for the Church of England’s own National Safeguarding Team. Let it sink in..66. This is a judgement: Not on a tiny struggling parish trying to keep the lights on. Not for an exhausted priest or volunteers in a deprived community. Not for the people endlessly told to “improve compliance” Rather it is judgment in our national safeguarding structures themselves. And that raises some very uncomfortable questions. And it needs all of us to take notice, to listen to stand up to demand change. If the NST itself requires this level of recommendation and restructuring, what exactly has been demanded for years of survivors, clergy, dioceses, and parishes in terms of “confidence” and “trust”? If the centre itself lacks capacity, clarity, and consistency, who has really been carrying the safeguarding burden all this time? Because it certainly hasn’t been equally shared. Poorer parishes, overstretched clergy, survivors, and frontline safeguarding officers know that. This is awful. And let’s ask the much much harder question plainly: can safeguarding ever be truly independent while remaining embedded within the very institution whose reputation, liabilities, and internal culture it is also required to protect? No it can’t. No it can’t. This is why so many of us have kept saying the safeguarding crisis was never simply about process. It was about power and culture. Who holds it. Who protects it. Who fears losing it. And who gets sacrificed when institutions become defensive. 66 recommendations do not describe a few isolated mistakes. They describe a system under strain. They also describe the utter lack of leadership that there has been over the past number of years. The present Bishop of Saint Edmundsbury and Ipswich, who was in charge of that culture needs to take responsibility for it. Joanne Grenfell needs to resign. Just like Justin Welby - although he had to be pushed before he went - she needs to show that this lack of responsibility has its consequences for those who were in charge. Otherwise no change will happen. Because for bishops there is never any cost. That then the cost is borne by victims and survivors that the very same bishops even refuse to meet with. And the Church now has to decide whether it wants real safeguarding reform. Real reform that redistributes power and accountability. Real reform that really puts victims and survivors at its heart Real reform that is simply truly Christian, truly Christlike and stands with and raises up the abused. Another round of managerial language, branding exercises, and institutional self-protection dressed up as change simply will no longer do. What would Jesus do? Who will Jesus stand with? Or will you walk by on other side? churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2…