A fateful exit interview

May 7, 2024 2:19 AM

Wherever the blame lies, at the heart of the story are humans operating, ruptured, in an institutional machine. Many of the 42 are still ‘deeply injured’ by the incident, said Simon, who acts as their unofficial spokesperson. As the whole affair unravelled, the diocese was already under immense strain. The COVID lockdowns set clergy against their bishops, with many priests livid at having to close their churches. Others were angered by moves to invest millions in a new wave of informal congregations meeting in pubs, coffee shops and cinemas. And throughout it all there was division and tension over the church-wide culture war about gay blessings. ‘There’s so little trust at the moment,’ Roger reflected. ‘And in London, all the anger and the issues have a face: that face is Martin Sargeant.’ from In the Shadow of St Paul’s [The Fence; ungated] [CW: suicide, misogyny, homophobia.]
posted by chavenet (13 comments total)

Wow this is one insane story.

"So Sargeant sat down for what turned into nine hours of interviews with Archdeacon Miller. The outcome was an infamous document, officially titled the Two Cities Report, but universally known as the ‘brain dump’. In it, Sargeant listed 42 priests as worthy of monitoring, alongside his rambling recollections of their alleged eccentricities, peccadilloes and secrets he had squirrelled away over the years."

Mysogyny and homophobia indeed. What a tragic waste.
posted by Zumbador at 3:29 AM on May 7 [4 favorites]

I didn't realize quite how fucked up and backwards the Church of England still is. The Episcopal Church in the US has officially been ordaining openly LGBTQ people since the 1990s, ordained its first openly gay bishop in 2003, and officially marrying same-sex couples since 2017. And of course they've ordained women since the 1970s, and the first woman was ordained bishop in the 1980s. The persecution of closeted priests and the language used against the bishop for being a woman are really upsetting and make me wonder why these folks aren't just Catholic.

As a (recovering) Presbyterian, I feel I should also point out that some of these abuses were permitted because of the episcopal (small e, having bishops) structure of the church, which invests a ton of power, including the power of hiring, in a few specific people who are then overseen only by a few specific people, rather than having the purse strings controlled by elected groups of lay people, as in presbyterian (small p, congregation elected elders and larger democratic bodies) and congregationalist (run at the congregation level) structures.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:31 AM on May 7 [12 favorites]

I have personal knowledge, through family members who did contract work for a branch of the Anglican Communion, that it is a "cesspool" of backbiting, gossip, scandal and jockeying for power, with several bishops and archbishops being like bad parodies of the politicians in Yes, Minister than anything approaching genuine Christ like pastors. People's lives and careers are ruined and their reputations blackened for the pettiest, stupidest reasons. The church is only kept going financially by selling off old properties whose real estate values have greatly appreciated, for conversion into condos or nightclubs. Attendance continues to plummet and the congregational givings are not sustainable. So this article is very familiar and very believable.

And just to provide some additional commentary knowing the audience here on the blue, this church is very culturally and theologically progressive, it's ordained women for nearly half a century, many priests, bishops and archbishops are female or sexual minorities, same-sex marriages are openly conducted. The conservatives who opposed these developments left long ago or are dead. I know the tendency is to just blame homophobia or the patriarchy for these types of depressing stories, but the institutional rot goes deeper I think.
posted by fortitude25 at 4:41 AM on May 7 [10 favorites]

Thanks for that, fortitude25. I reminded of the fact that one of the central villains of the horrible story depicted in Mr. Bates vs the Post Office was inexplicably both CEO of the Post Office and an active Anglican priest. I guess it really is all about working the system to get more power.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:55 AM on May 7 [5 favorites]

fortitude25, I'd characterise the CofE a little differently than you. It's only ordained women for thirty years and, I believe, still allows dissenting priests to serve under a male bishop from outside the diocese. It is a mix of conservative and progressive theological impulses which are complicated by other divides (e.g. high church Anglo-Catholicism vs low church). The peculiar history of the CofE as a national church which has tried to be all things to all people means its riven with tensions, as is evident in the ongoing Living in Love and Faith process around homosexual unions which, well intentioned as it was, seems to have united people on all sides of the divide in disappointment at the process.

Anyhow, I came in to say that I found the way this article seemed to pin a lot of the blame on Mullally a little odd. It's clear that Chartes let Sargeant do whatever he wanted and that it was under his tenure that the embezzlement took place. Beyond that, the suggestion that Mullally should have swept reports of abuse under the rug like Chartes would have done ignores the fact that there are Very Good Reasons to not give bishops discretion in dealing with potentional abuse violations in this way. That Sargeant knew this and still chose to make the allegation seems like just another example of his mendacity. This isn't to say that it couldn't have been handled better, but if you're dealing with a world class shitstirrer then it's not surprising if some of it gets spread around. I don't know much about Mullally outside of this article, but even reading behind the facts it presents, it looks like she was ordained into a rat's nest of dysfunction and historically bad choices and is doing her best to manage her way out of it.
posted by nangua at 5:54 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]

fortitude25, I'd characterise the CofE a little differently than you.

Just to be clear, I'm not referring to the Church of England, which I would agree with you, is more conservative than this branch (which is much closer to the US Episcopalians).
posted by fortitude25 at 5:57 AM on May 7 [4 favorites]

Can't be easy to run the COE today. It used to be a church in the ordinary sense of the word, with a sideline of political exposure due to establishment. It's now a hybrid real estate holding company, social services organization, and life event venue operator, with a sideline of worship and catechism for a small and dwindling band of regular communicants ... over which some middle managers and all senior executives must be ordained, despite a seminary pipeline that is, shall we say, not as fired up with zeal as most denominations' seminary pipelines are. And you still have to worry about what headlines some bishop might make in the House of Lords.
posted by MattD at 6:08 AM on May 7 [3 favorites]

at least they're not literally burning people any more
posted by torokunai at 9:18 AM on May 7 [3 favorites]

I was already irritated by the florid language before the writer made the choice to spend two paragraphs relaying vile and apparently unfounded slurs against a woman. That's a bit ironic in an article ostensibly about the harms of relaying vile and apparently unfounded slurs.
posted by rdc at 9:19 AM on May 7 [6 favorites]

That church comes across as a societal dumping ground for gays who can't get a man, kind of the equivalent of the medieval nunneries where they would put women without dowries. Complete with all the backbiting and lack of religious meaning that those nunneries had, too.

Sargeant was malicious and bored and probably at least slightly embarrassed to be in this environment in the 21st century.
posted by kingdead at 9:37 AM on May 7 [2 favorites]

AIUI you usually needed a dowry to *become* a medieval nun; without one you would be a lay sister at best, usually worse for you.

Unmarried daughters go to the convent in ancien regime France after the King sets marriage dowries so high that The aristocracy’s birth rate goes down.

(_The Prospect Before Her_, Hufton, errors mine!)
posted by clew at 11:40 AM on May 7 [5 favorites]

Uh, distracted by Huftonesque thoughts, but especially with the Post Office/ Lords Spiritual this doesn’t look like where you stash poor people. Yesno?
posted by clew at 12:00 PM on May 7 [1 favorite]

I had dealings with a female Anglican minister - rebuilding the fence with the church next door - more than 20 years ago now. She would have been one of the earliest female ordained ministers.

We were discussing how she came to be in charge of that particular parish. Her comment was, "The male ministers get all the rich parishes that are financially viable. They appoint us females to the parishes in trouble, on the basis that the parishioners might not get as angry with us, when we start having to sell off and shut down parish properties. Usual thing, men make the mess and then the women are sent in to clean it up."

Same as it ever was.
posted by Barbara Spitzer at 2:59 PM on May 7 [9 favorites]