Law and religion round-up – 12th May

Another bad week for the Church of England and its approach to safeguarding…

…which was not assisted by the timing and content of some of the material it released, infra. Following the previous week’s Panorama programme Scandal in the Church of England and the second IICSA seminar on mandatory reporting, on 8 May the Church published the report of the working party on the Ministry of Confession, which was followed on Thursday with the 252-page report by the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse into the Anglican Church, based on its case studies last year of the Diocese of Chichester and the response to allegations against the former Bishop of Gloucester. Neither was well received. Also this week, Pope Francis issued the motu proprio Vos estis lux mundi (“You Are the Light of the World”), which we summarized here. Continue reading