Open Letter to the Bishops of England and Wales

Peter D. Williams is promoting an open letter to the Bishops of England and Wales from Catholic laity which sets out some very compelling points and a litany of church safeguarding failings.

Recently I was removed from a speaking event because the host was "concerned" my presence would upset the bishops in some way. Why the concern? Because I don't keep quiet about abuses of office the bishops are guilty of. Nor will I. It is childish and cowardly to consider that we must curtail honesty for some false show of unity when incredibly serious issues are at stake: this is just one example of the incredibly serious nature of the duty bishops accept. And their failure to properly execute that duty.

There is a really worrying tendency among some Catholics, perhaps especially those who seem the bishops as a means to accelerating their own careers, seem perfectly willing to ignore the utter failure of the collective episcopate to perform any of their basic functions with even competency, let alone enthusiasm or aplomb. The fact that they appear to not even be able to deal with the threat to children and vulnerable adults from those in their own ranks is, frankly, terrifying. As Peter says, enough is long since enough. If Catholics don't stand up and tell the bishops this is unacceptable then we have no right to complain about it. We must stand up and call our bishops to holiness!

Please read and sign!!

Peter explains:

This past Sunday was ‘Good Shepherd Sunday’ in the New Rite, a week after the same observance in the Traditional Rite. The readings for both see Our Lord warn us that unlike Himself – the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls (1 Peter 2:25) – there will be other would-be shepherds who are mere hirelings and who will abandon the sheep in their need (John 10:11-13).

Throughout the history of the Church, we see that there are some who are hirelings inherently, and still others who take on hireling-like qualities due to weakness and failure.

Sadly, there are many areas in which we see see this, but none – excepting the prevention of sacrilege – are as serious as safeguarding. 

The Church should be the safest and best institution anywhere when it comes to the protection of vulnerable people, and major scandals in this area have been the worst ‘motives of incredibility’ contradicting the Church’s witness to the Gospel. Yet the recent Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) investigation has revealed unacceptable failures continuing by Episcopal and Diocesan authorities, including safeguarding officers.

Enough is – long, long since – enough. When and where Bishops or Diocesan Curia have or will not implement good (let alone *best*) practices that we should rightly expect, it is only right and just that the laity call them to do so. That is what this letter is meant do. The more of us who do sign, the more powerful will be the signal sent to our Shepherds to abandon hireling tendencies and to stand up as the proper good Pastors they ought to be.

You can see the full details in the Open Letter itself: https://forms.gle/iB7qRqjxaTRPAwtu7 Please sign and encourage as many others who can to do so. Thank you.