Letters about the Church of England in the Press

Subject: Letters about the Church of England in the Press

From: HG

Date: 27 Apr 2016

16/04/16

Dear Right Honourable Prime Minister,

I spoke with your call handler at 10 Downing Street two weeks ago and she suggested that I wrote to you regarding my concerns. It was an ordeal phoning you as my disability means I can barely use a phone for conversation, but the situation demanded it.

I have thus written letter of concern and also the attached Open Letter to the press , to the parties concerned, including the Telegraph and the Archbishop's Press and Communications representatives and the National Child abuse inquiry.

I will also publish this online, as the only way to stop the Church's repeat press and media abuse is to shame them, they are above the law and seemingly above you as you, the only thing that seems to stop their bad behaviour is simply telling them how bad it is, and most vulnerable people who they harm cannot do that, and I have paid dearly for doing so.
I have been unwell due to the issue that needs to be discussed but am now taking action as best I can.

This matter relates to the Church of England's use, or rather abuse, of the press in the past three years or more since Justin Welby became Archbishop.

There has been one inappropriate and outrageous press stunt after another, some announce that the Archbishop doesn't know his own Church, and some, such as the recent ones, announce that he doesn't know his Bible, God, or the Ten Commandments, which he recently publicly broke for at least the second time. ('Honour thy Father(s) and Thy Mother, do not use them to glorify yourself and your Church).

I couldn't believe what I was seeing on the front page of the Telegraph that recent Saturday, nor last Sunday. I knew that April Fools day had gone, maybe the Telegraph got the timing wrong?
And unfortunately due to the severe damage to me by the Church of England, which isn't over, seeing Welby use a Newspaper Headline to announce his very personal life left me ill and off work, which isn't good as I am disabled and in poverty as a result. I deliver newspapers as part of my living.

And at a time when the Church are under investigation for mass abuse, I think Welby's need to force his most intimate personal life on the general public was inappropriate and also an insult to those of us who are suffering due to abuse in the church and also the terrible way that the church handles abuse cases, in my case I remain destroyed and suffering.

Thousands of men in this country do not know who their father is, thousands are not sure, some don't mind that much, some had a good replacement father, some feel the loss of the Father they didn't have, but few of them make the headlines of even the lesser papers, why? Because being illegitimate or finding out that your father is someone else, even a famous person, is not headline news.
Especially not in a newspaper like the Telegraph, who, presumably will soon have a heading 'Only 15p! 5p Cheaper than the Daily Star!' in order to try to keep in circulation.

The Church should not be in a position to utilize the press for non-Christian blaring and stunts.
Welby's stunt last Saturday surely horrified real Christians who know that this exhibitionism isn't the way to behave in public, which is why Sunday's headlines added to the horror, other leaders rallying round him, gagging for some of the press stunt limelight? Why? Is there no church left that doesn't see through Welby's terrible run of press stunts and see how unchristian and damaging it is to the vulnerable and to the Christian Faith?

Unfortunately the 'Clergy Discipline System' within the Church is a token and inadequate system, there to protect powerful wrongdoers and destroy the vulnerable, and it was used to harm me and protect wrongdoers, which is why I am asking you to handle this matter directly.
I did make a clergy discipline complaint about the Archbishop and associated Bishops involved in harming me through a press publicity stunt three years ago, when they used a whitewash report into my case to simultaneously defame and destroy me and try to make the Church look good. I was threatened and my complaint was deliberately squashed.

There never has been such a resounding failure as the church 'safeguarding' attack on me, it did destroy me but the Church broke a number of laws and now they are being very very quiet indeed about it, and as they continue the hurtful press campaign but seem unable to answer me regarding the mess they have made of my case. I would like you to step in and bring an end both to the Church of England's abuse of the press and their harm to me and other victims.

Please would you call an independent inquiry into the Jersey Deanery and Diocese of Winchester abuse case, one that looks impartially at church-police-authorities illegal actions and harm through the press and abuse of power and repeated acts without my consent. The Church won't engage and have whitewashed this matter and left me destroyed, a fugitive and in fear of my life.

I am grateful for your help.

Further Reading:

23/04/2013

Dear Independent Press Standards Organization,

I am a vulnerable adult who is at risk if my name and details are published or circulated, this is because courtesy of the Church of England I have been hounded, smeared and destroyed through their use of the press for stunts, I was one of Justin Welby's first stunts, a pretence of safeguarding to make the church look good.
He then left me to be ripped apart by the press and complete strangers by his misleading of the general public.

The recent stunt of Justin Welby making non-news as a headline cements my belief that the Church of England are paying the press a lot of money in order to make headlines. And because this is abuse of the press and is inappropriate as well as perverting public image of Christianity and giving the church limelight, advertising basically, when they are behaving badly. I feel that something should be done.

This is an especial priority now because Justin Welby launched his front page 'non-news' conveniently at a time when the Church of England are being investigated for systemic CSA crimes that Bishop Paul Butler has tried his hardest to sex up and use to glorify the Church. Butler is frequently in the press alongside Welby as Church Press Stuntman, deceiving the general public regarding safeguarding in the Church, while he has overseen me being vilified and destroyed publicly and has refused to respond to my distress or intervene.

As an abuse survivor who the Church have destroyed for press stunts and cover-up, I object to having my day ruined by Church press stunts when I have to deliver papers in the morning and am left ill and sickened at Welby's audacity when the Church of England are under investigation. And I am sure it impacts on other victims that have been left voiceless and harmed by the Church's continuing inability to safeguard or respond properly to complaints.

I have been destroyed by the Church, they grabbed headlines over three years ago to destroy me again in pretence of looking really good about safeguarding. They had no thought for my welfare and have left me voiceless, vilified and suffering, without making the press stunt a fair deal in making sure I was heard in the press on equal footing.
Indeed their efforts to make me out to be insane to cover up a case that they handled as badly as possible, on top of their throwing me into the press with inaccurate reports, has led to me being a fugitive who has to routinely keep their identity hidden in order to protect themselves.
I can't be me, I am living in fear, and all because of Welby's first 'paid up' headline press stunt.
An organization like the Church of England should not have the power over the press that they do. And certainly not for PR stunts that they make into headline news.

I would like to discuss Welby's string of press stunts and how they abuse the public and also go against what the church of England stand for (although they only now stand for it in theory).

The safeguarding stunt of my case was a desparate effort by the church to avoid investigation for abuse, it was a series of whitewashes and cover ups that abused and mislead the press and general public, and it resurfaces every few months and traumatizes me.
It is astounding that Welby used me for his first 'apology' press stunt, of which there has been an endless stream over the past three years, and then has allowed me to be vilified and destroyed publicly.

Following his 'apology', Welby has simply left me to be torn apart by the defendants in my case, powerful Church dignitaries who he has no control over, lawyers, judges, members of government, the usual Church of England club congregation, he has left me destroyed and allowed these conflicted people to abuse their power and carry out whitewash reports into my case themselves and this has continued to reach the press and destroy me, while Welby, having mislead the general public, has left me suffering intolerably and fails to respond to my concerns at all. What happens to the voiceless vulnerable when the Church have this inappropriate power over the press?

I am in fear of my life as lies and whitewash reports regarding my case hit the headlines every few months. The same press have never even tried to include my side of things and thus codes of conduct are being breached, surely.

The 'apology' stunts apparently aimed at vulnerable groups but the real aim is just simply to make the church look good, and notably these 'apologies' are carried out with no real interaction with the groups 'apologized' to, and at the same time as prominent members of the church are harming the same vulnerable groups, for example while the Archbishop was vaguely 'apologizing' to the gay community and trotting out the lines written for him by his press and communication departments on the advice that this will make the Church look good, the Bishop of Winchester was sacking two members of the clergy for being Gay, while Queens Chaplain Gavin Ashenden was launching yet another attack on the gay community, using his status to attack them just as he did the same to me.

I think Welby's press advisor/writer doesn't research, doesn't think of the welfare of those targeted and is overstepping a lot of boundaries. Welby appears to go along with what he is told to say to the press and media, even when he contradicts himself or invalidates the Church of England.

So there have been the apology stunts, and the one aimed at me was never delivered in person, it was purely a press stunt, followed by me being destroyed from then until now, and eventually I will not be able to endure it, as yet, no authority I have contacted will prevent harm to me, so could you be the first and stop the Church from manipulating and abusing the press. I understand you can't extend this to the BBC, but they and the Church are Birds of a Feather, both with a long history of abuse and cover up and deception of the general public.

On from the apology stunts, apparently it needed to be headline news that Welby 'wanted to drive Wonga out of business' (which would result in people like me ending up starving and homeless). Welby failed to research Wonga and was shamed by the fact his Church had shares in Wonga, as well as companies involved with weapons and pornography!
I can't remember who helpfully outed that but Welby blustered and said the Church would drive Wonga out of business with a Credit Union run by the Church. He seems to forget that those of us who have been abused and are thus unwelcome in the Church would be excluded, and many members of the public who do not like the Church and their bad behaviour would also be excluded.

Every few months, either Butler or Welby comes out with an outrageous abuse of the press, in Butler's case it is to mislead about safeguarding and make people think the Church cares, for example 'praising the courage' of an abuse victim who committed suicide in the Bishop Ball case.
Firstly Butler and other Bishops were in power and aware of their colleague's caution for abuse and did nothing, secondly what do the family think of this fat Bishop in the press praising their dead family member for church glorification purposes when the Church treated him the same way as they have treated me? This should not be happening. Butler has made no effort to resolve my case and I have nearly been driven to suicide and am at breaking point.

I think the reasons that the Church are not tackled over their outrageous behaviour is apathy, the Church are a law unto their own and people aren't listened to if they complain to the Church, a lot of people are being mislead by the Church's press stunts and more are being hurt, but no one feels that complaining to you is effective, as I have noted from many comments on social media, but someone has to start somewhere, and as I am destroyed by the Church and in fear of my life from their abuse of the press, it may as well be me who starts the objection.

Onwards into the press stunts. Welby decided that his daughter would make a good showpiece, in the same manner as he has recently decided that his mother and one of his other fathers were.
Anyway, apparently this well-fed daughter of Welby's was feeling sad about a breakup of a relationship, so Welby decided to insult anyone who suffers genuine mental illness by pimping his daughter out as mentally ill, the point of this was unclear apart from that the church are gagging for attention and presumably he hoped this would grab attention from the public and mislead them to think that there are human beings in the Church.

Reality is that mental illness is not a laughing matter and Welby has showed by allowing his church to publicly attack me on the excuse that I am mentally ill, that he doesn't understand or care about mental illness. The church have tried to use mental illness as an excuse to make me not credible, with no understanding of PTSD that they have caused.

The Church being mostly wealthy middle class with comfortable lives, do not understand human problems such as disability and trauma, and their abuse of the press using such topics to glorify themselves or to condemn someone like me is outrageous. I have little understanding of press guidelines, with only a short course in journalism on my CV, but I do know that ethically in the wider world and in safeguarding, the church's behaviour is unacceptable. There isn't any way their misleading self-glorification at the expense of the vulnerable is acceptable.

A few years ago, Justin Welby did a Christmas special press stunt, by launching one of his previous fathers into the press as a drunkard. In this case in his desparation for attention, the Archbishop broke one of the 10 commandments, as he has done again recently with another of his fathers, both of whom are presumably dead and unable to answer his smears of them. How embarrassing and shameless!

Anyway, so for no apparently reason he did this Christmas special advertisement of the Church as having no respect for family or privacy or the 10 commandments, it doesn't matter if the man he was maligning was dead or wasn't his father. What mattered is that he was making press headlines setting a bad example to his Church and hurting real Christians who simply do not behave like that.
And all of this has gone on while he has left me suffering and voiceless. I have said to him if he has time for press stunts, he has time to bring justice and closure to my case, which he has left open with repeat attacks on me from his church regularly and with my story not in any reports.

Paul Butler had a spate of Shameless and ridiculous limelight-seeking press stunts that mislead and amazed people. He made a huge show of 'handing over' big names to the police in the press limelight, whoever co-ordinates these press stunts should be very ashamed of themselves, and so should Butler, and I have asked why the police haven't brought charges against the Church for perverting the course of justice there as well as in my case where the church protected two serial abusers and destroyed me.

I think it was a related Butler-led stunt that interestingly just before the National Abuse Inquiry, decided to tell the press another squeaky clean safeguarding lie, that they were having files regarding confession or abuse independently audited, oh what a co-incidence.

In my case the Church called a Church counsellor, a Bishop, a Church judge and other conflicted people 'independent' and allowed these people to destroy me, and Butler-Sloss who also features in my case, was also called independent while protecting Bishop Ball alongside Bishop Gladwin who also whitewashed my case.
Thus I assume the independent auditing so proudly mentioned in the press was again a misuse of independent and a rapid cover up and shredding of files before the abuse inquiry, but the general public, mislead by the church and press, aren't to know that.

I am going to conclude with the most recent press stunt. Jesus did not say His followers should crow and strut in the limelight and use their family shamelessly as Welby has done. Jesus did not remove the 10 commandments. Jesus advocated prudence and simplicity and fairness. I do not know how Welby managed to conveniently get a paternity test and buy headlines with it, but it wasn't news, it isn't appropriate behaviour for a religious leader, and for the other church leaders to beg for limelight by supporting Welby's outrageous behaviour there is little hope for the Church.

Most importantly, while the Church are under investigation for abuse, any headlines that are not necessary are an affront to victims of the Church, both those who are already under stress from having to give evidence and those of us who are voiceless and silenced.

Welby's church is very very messed up and problematic, with a huge amount of wealth and a very exclusive congregation and a lot of power to abuse, as has been shown in my efforts to get justice and a voice, so he shouldn't be taking time to discuss his personal life with a horrified, disgusted, fascinated, indifferent and admiring general public through newspapers and media that should be working within boundaries to ensure impartial and good news coverage without offence to members of the public.

What I would ask, if you may, is investigate how much money is being used to run this continuous press stunt, as it appears to be enough money to ensure that if Welby wants to talk about the warts on his toes and vaguely link that to Christianity, the press will comply without question, even if Welby headlines again the following week with 'oops, I meant the warts on my hands'.

Also, would you ensure that the press and media understand the impact of these rudderless press stunts on the vulnerable, especially those damaged by the Church.
If possible remind the Church of England of their responsibility while they are being investigated for systemic abuse, that they should not be using the press for unimportant press stunts while victims have the stress of the inquiry to deal with, these victims need safeguarding from the Church's needless narcissistic showing off. And while the Church can't safeguard, they need to take their focus off press advertising and put it to creating safeguarding within the church.

I really think it is time that Welby started focussing on bringing some Christianity into his monster, power-hungry and oppressive church and stopped abusing the press and general public. Although he may need reminding what Christianity is.

Many thanks,

This is officially CC Lambeth Palace, the BBC, the Abuse Inquiry and The Telegraph and Mail as a courtesy.

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