Memoirs continued
George Carey
Isaac Publishing, 2021
George Carey was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1991-2002. I was a member of staff at Church House from 1995, during which time I observed him to be a down-to-earth, good person. Now in retirement he is a member of the House of Lords.
I attended the launch of this, his second volume of memoirs in October 2021 at the Christian Resources Exhibition. He told the audience that he is uncomfortable with titles and we should just call him “George”. I couldn’t bring myself to be so informal and called him “Lord Carey” when I asked him to sign my copy.
The first volume of his memoirs “Know the Truth” was published in 2002 shortly after his retirement as Archbishop. He never expected that twenty years of retirement would be so eventful and controversial as to require a second volume.
This book overlaps with the first volume. It covers events before his retirement as well as after. He begins by summarising his motivation in life:
“My story is a clear answer to the question: “What difference does the Christian faith make?” In my case it freed me, changed me and gave me a purpose in life and a reason to exist. I cannot but be grateful.” (Page 6).
The book is divided into a range of topics. In chapter three he writes of his involvement with the World Economic Forum in 2002 and how business leaders were shocked to learn that in the Church of England, the Archbishop of Canterbury does not hold all the levers of power:
“My secular colleagues were amazed at the business approach of the Church of England. From their point of view, a CEO (Archbishop) who had forty-two separate and independent units (dioceses), each with its own separate business plan, was in charge of a business doomed to fail. I could not disagree with that. My experience of the Church of England was one of frustration at our inability to agree on what message to present […] It was not that our bishop-colleagues were difficult people – they were not; they were serious, sincere and godly. It was a privilege to work with them. But the independent structures of the Church meant that each bishop was autonomous – an archbishop could only intervene when there was a major crisis. This was not conducive to creating policies on mission, evangelism and service.” (Page 51).
In chapter 5 he tells us of hosting a meeting of the President of the World Bank, Jim Wolfensohn, with religious leaders at Lambeth Palace in 1998.
“Jim was […] the first President to engage directly with faith leaders – a deed that would put him at odds with the Board of the World Bank. At our first meeting, he told me that on becoming President of the World Bank he discovered from his first visit to Tanzania that nearly half of all the health care, education and social care in the country was delivered through the churches and other faith groups. Jim said he found himself asking: “Why are we processing all World Bank grants through the government and ignoring the extensive religious networks of the country?”” (Page 83).
Lord Carey and Jim Wolfensohn went on to co-found the World Faiths Development Dialogue, with a vision for the World Bank and religious organisations to work together to tackle poverty. However, there was a backlash with the Board of the World Bank:
“The French representative particularly objected to such a liaison, arguing that the principle of separation of Church and State forbade such collaboration. That argument won the day and the President was instructed to break off all official links with the World Faiths Development Dialogue.” (Page 88).
Lord Carey comments:
“faith communities were under-valued partners in the fight against injustice, poverty, war and disease. The plain truth is that the religious illiteracy of most political leaders, especially in the West, holds back development and weakens aid getting to the people who need it most.” (Page 88).
In chapter six he recounts the disputes in the Anglican Communion over sexual ethics:
“The Lambeth Conference of 1998 over which I had presided had been hugely successful in many respects, but Resolution 1.10 which declared homosexual acts “sinful” was a time bomb waiting to explode. […] The American bishops, angry and hurt, returned home determined to pursue their own pathway […] within a few months Gene Robinson, a highly popular and charismatic gay clergyman, was chosen by the diocese of New Hampshire to be its bishop. Huge dismay greeted this decision, not only in the wider Communion but also in America. […] There was little that my successor, Rowan Williams, could do to slow down the process, and in any case he, temperamentally and theologically, possibly had more sympathy than I with the decision. But everyone knew that this was a major step towards the breakup of the Anglican Communion.” (Page 101-2).
After retirement, Lord Carey supported the traditionalists in the US Church who felt persecuted by the new liberal majority:
“The increasing liberalisation of the Church has given way to a harsh intolerance whereby conservative bishops and clergy were forced out of office. It seems that there is truth in the saying that “there is none so dogmatic as a dogmatic liberal”. An illustration later was in the diocese of Albany where Bishop Bill Love, a greatly respected and devoted bishop, was forced from office because of his commitment to traditional marriage and opposition to same-sex unions. A church court ruled that he had violated his ordination vows and canon law when he banned same-sex marriages in his diocese.” (Page 106)
Chapter seven, is an interesting account of his involvement in the setting up of new Academy schools.
In chapter eight he writes of his change of view to support assisted dying:
“I naturally identified with the traditional view that the sanctity of human life forbade the taking of that life in any form. For years I had been opposed to any alteration of the official doctrines of the churches on not encouraging people to commit suicide. But this was to change as I went deeper into the subject. […] Why is it, I found myself asking, that a terminally ill person may ask for a machine to be turned off and thus die, but cannot get medical assistance to die peacefully?” (Pages 140-3).
We see the seeds of his poor relationship with the current Archbishop of Canterbury when he recounts his decision to go public on his change of stance by writing an article for the Daily Mail newspaper announcing that he would be voting in favour of a proposal for legislation for assisted dying in the House of Lords:
“In an article for the Daily Mail […] I wrote that I intended to support legislation tabled by the Labour peer Lord Falconer […] to legalise assisted dying for the terminally ill in England and Wales. […] I was fully aware that this would astonish and indeed anger the leadership of the Church […] The day before the article was published on Saturday, July 11th 2014, I felt that out of courtesy I should contact Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to alert him to my action. He returned my call within minutes and was clearly furious. He shouted down the phone: “I am here in York for General Synod. How dare you intervene in such an important matter!” I could not believe my ears that, without giving me an opportunity to explain the background, he should speak to me in such a belligerent manner. I told him that I was acting courteously by giving him fair warning of my intention to write but, I went on to say, that I was not going to be spoken to in such a rude manner. Justin calmed down and the rest of the conversation was civil, though strained.” (Page 144).
My sympathy is with Archbishop Justin here. One day’s notice was not “fair warning” and it was not an “intention to write” – it had already been submitted for publication.
I’m also not convinced by his argument for assisted dying:
“one of the most fundamental questions in the issue of assisted dying: that of autonomy – whose life is it, anyway?” (Page 147).
A traditional Christian answer is that our life belongs to God. Sherlock Holmes makes this point the story of “The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger” published in 1927. A severely injured woman is in despair and considering suicide. Holmes has this exchange with her:
“‘Your life is not your own,’ he said. ‘Keep your hands off it.’
‘What use is it to anyone?’
‘How can you tell? The example of patient suffering is in itself the most precious of all lessons to an impatient world.’” (‘The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes’ by Arthur Conan Doyle.)
Lord Carey recognises the sanctity of life and seeks to hold that together with compassion for the dying:
“those of us who believe that there is a place for assisted dying for those who request it because of their sufferings also believe in the intrinsic value of every human being.” (Page 150).
The area where Lord Carey has been most personally criticised has been failings in safeguarding when he was Archbishop, particularly in his handling of the case of the abuser, former bishop Peter Ball. In chapter ten, he recounts:
“I had just returned from a two-week visit to Sri Lanka in my second year as Archbishop, when, on December 11th 1992, Bishop John Yates, my Chief of Staff at Lambeth Palace, told me that the twin brothers, Michael and Peter Ball wanted to see me urgently. Michael was the Bishop of Truro and Peter the Bishop of Gloucester. […] In that very difficult meeting, arranged for Tuesday 15th December, I could scarcely believe what I was hearing – that a bishop was being accused of the sexual abuse of a young man. Peter vehemently denied it and Michael backed him completely. It was nonsense and should be strongly rejected, they argued. I then met with Peter Ball privately and he continued to dismiss the allegations, pointing to personal jealousies in the Order of which he was part as an explanation for a “conspiracy” against him. […] There was strong public support for Peter from within the diocese of Gloucester and nationwide. I, too, could not believe the accusations against him and publicly gave him support.” [Page 177-8].
However, Lord Carey later discovers that there was truth in the accusation:
“Peter Ball […] accepted the police caution against him and resigned from active ministry, retiring to Truro to be with his brother. My attitude to Peter Ball changed accordingly. My earlier support gave way to sad acknowledgment that he had betrayed Christ but it did not seem to me that there was anything else I could do. […] When I made enquiries of the police seeking information of the exact details of the allegations which had led to this “caution” I was told it was a police matter.” [Page 178].
One thing he could have done was to visit the victim of the abuse. This is no longer possible today as the victim, some years later, sadly, committed suicide.
Lord Carey does accept mistakes, but even now I’m not sure he fully ‘gets it’:
“Looking back to that period I realise I made two fundamental mistakes. I trusted Peter Ball too much and failed to put him on the Lambeth Caution List. This list was intended to bar priests from returning to ministry without counselling, repentance and renewal. The decision not to place him on the list was made after consultation with Frank Robson, my lawyer, and John Yates, my Chief of Staff. Although it was my decision, we reasoned together that Ball was now retired, very ill and would never work as a priest again. What we failed to see at the time was that, as Ball’s health improved, he would seek any means to return to a limited ministry to redeem himself.” (Page 178).
It may be that Ball sought to return to ministry to “redeem himself”, but it is also possible that he sought to return to ministry to get opportunities to abuse again.
Lord Carey tries to set the record straight over the accusation that he withheld from the police letters of evidence about Ball. When last year I undertook further Church of England safeguarding training for my role as churchwarden, one of the supplementary resources was the excellent BBC TV documentary of 2020, “Exposed: The Church’s Darkest Secret”. In addition to extremely powerful testimony from survivors of abuse, it had some dramatised clips with an actor playing Archbishop Carey. The programme implied that he was the one who decided to only hand the least damaging of the seven letters about Ball to the police during a visit to Lambeth Palace.
Lord Carey writes that what actually happened was he didn’t even know about the police visit to Lambeth Palace to ask for letters received about Ball:
“I was shocked to learn in 2017, during an interview with Dame Moira Gibb who was conducting a review into the Church’s handling of the Peter Ball case, that the Gloucester police had visited Lambeth Palace and asked to see correspondence of relevance. […] Deputy Chief Inspector Murdock, who had visited Lambeth Palace on December 22nd 1992 […] had met with Bishop John Yates. […] I was in my study when police apparently visited and, according to dates on the letters, I was replying to two of the letter writers. One was a mother who had raised concerns about Peter Ball’s behaviour towards her son. I wrote to her stating that if she had any concerns she should write directly to Gloucester police.”
As a result of Dame Moira Gibb’s report, Lord Carey was disciplined by Archbishop Justin by not being allowed to exercise his ministry in retirement:
“On June 20th 2017 the long wait ended when I received Dame Moira Gibb’s full report with the damning title Abuse of Faith […] the report seemed to single out me personally with regard to claims that I had failed to hand over letters to the police. Next day a brief email arrived from the Archbishop of Canterbury […] and told me in no uncertain terms to relinquish my role as Assistant Bishop in the diocese of Oxford. I was astonished at the lack of pastoral care. He had not bothered to request a meeting and tell me face-to-face” (Page 189-190).
The letter contained the threat that if he did not resign his license, the Bishop of Oxford would revoke it “for a season”. In discussions with Stephen Croft, the Bishop of Oxford:
“it was becoming clear that in asking me to stand down as an Assistant Bishop, he was forcing me to relinquish my entire priestly ministry.” (Page 190).
Lord Carey did stand down and:
“Almost immediately the consequences of the action emerged. I was forbidden to preach the following Sunday at Wargrave Parish Church; I was unable to speak at a friend’s memorial service in the Bristol diocese; I was told I could not participate in a charity event in the Oxford diocese and, immediately, the Bishop in Europe informed me that an invitation to address clergy in Zurich was withdrawn. More punishment was to come as charities and organisations we had supported over the years cut their ties.” (Page 190-191).
Later, he wrote to Archbishop Justin to request a meeting:
“I felt I had to build relations with the Archbishop of Canterbury. Having sat in his seat, I knew from experience how difficult that role is and believed that a personal meeting between us was necessary. […] I wrote:
“[…] Dame Moira even suggested in a BBC news interview that I had failed to follow procedures. I did not have the benefit of any procedures in those pre-Savile days. […] I acknowledge my mistakes. You will have seen my apology. As the Archbishop at the time I was in charge, and must take responsibility. But the allegations you yourself made were of “collusion” and “cover up” which my opinion go beyond the judgment of the report […]”
The reply which I received six days later refused a meeting on the grounds that if anyone made a complaint against me under the Clergy Discipline Measure he, as Archbishop, would be compromised if he had previously met me, because he as Archbishop would have to chair any such disciplinary matter.” (Page 192-3).
Next came the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which included investigating the Peter Ball case again:
“On Tuesday, July 24th 2018, I appeared before IICSA. […] Six hours of interrogation was extremely tough and I attempted to answer as factually and fully as I was able. I acknowledged that I was too partial to Ball and taken in by his protestations of innocence. I also emphasised that I felt great regret in hardly paying any attention to the victims of Ball and their anger, distress and suffering. I said that I should have listened more to them. My mistake was to assume that support and pastoral care were being supplied to them in the respective dioceses where they lived. But that was not sufficient. (Page 195).
“Looking back now […] the Ball scandal did not get the attention it warranted by myself or my staff. At the time at Lambeth Palace we were juggling the storm of controversy that had arisen from General Synod’s vote to ordain women as priests and there was also the matter of a Royal divorce on the cards. No one gave the scandal their full focus and held the strands together. The most I did was to appoint a retired bishop to follow up the letters which Lambeth Palace received. This was not sufficient at the time, and it was not until the end of the 1990s that we appointed our first “safeguarding” adviser. To some extent, I feel I did not treat this matter as a priority, as I would now. This was quite wrong because it concerned people who had been let down by a bishop of the Church and was therefore of infinite importance. I regret that neglect.” (Page 200).
Adrian Vincent
March 2023.