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Diocesanism versus Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 September 2021

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Abstract

This article examines the contribution of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to the ecclesiology of the Anglican Church of Australia (ACA). The focus is on diocesanism – the strong form of diocesan autonomy that exists in the ACA. The article concludes that the Royal Commission identified diocesanism and the associated dispersion of ecclesial authority as key factors constraining the ACA’s responses to child sexual abuse, and actively sought to modify its impact. The article also points to the significance of the Royal Commission’s findings to ACA ecclesiological understandings and change.

Keywords

Anglican Church of AustraliaAnglican ecclesiologychild sexual abusediocesanismdiocesespublic inquiries
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Anglican Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , November 2021 , pp. 166 - 180
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Copyright
© The Journal of Anglican Studies Trust 2021

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Footnotes

1

The Rt Revd Alison M. Taylor holds an episcopal licence as a Mission Chaplain in the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia. She is currently a director of Anglican Representative (National Redress Scheme) Ltd, and a member of the Episcopal Standards Board of the Anglican Church of Australia.

References

2 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), pp. 559-77, 715-54, https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/unredacted-volume-16-religious-institutions-book-1.pdf (accessed 16 April 2021).

3 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. Part D 12, Anglican Church, pp. 556-797.

4 The published Papers of the Royal Commission are all available on its archive website, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/ (accessed 16 April 2021).

5 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Preface and Executive Summary (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), pp. 105-65, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/preface-and-executive-summary (accessed 17 April 2021).

6 Royal Commission, Final Report, Preface and Executive Summary, p. 153.

7 Royal Commission, Final Report, Preface and Executive Summary, pp. 159-63.

8 Refer, for example, to the treatment of the ACA’s embedded regionalism in Bruce Kaye, An Introduction to World Anglicanism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp. 50-54.

9 ‘Statement of the Right Reverend Allan Ewing – Schedule A’, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, Exhibit 52-0002, STAT.0875.001.0982_R at 0994_R, 2017, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/STAT.0875.001.0982_R.pdf (accessed 20 May 2021).

10 Refer to Kaye, An Introduction to World Anglicanism, pp. 41-63.

11 Refer to B. Kaye, ‘The Emergence and Character of Australian Anglican Identity’, in B. Kaye (ed.), Anglicanism in Australia: A History (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2002), pp. 154-76; Tom Frame, Anglicans in Australia (Sydney: University of NSW Press, 2007), pp. 47-71.

12 John Davis, Australian Anglicans and their Constitution (Waniassa, ACT: Acorn, 1993).

13 Davis, Australian Anglicans, p. 15.

14 Davis, Australian Anglicans, pp. 175-88.

15 The Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, The Constitution, Canons and Rules of the Anglican Church of Australia 2017 (Sydney: The Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, 2017), Constitution s. 7, p. 3, https://doi.org/https://anglican.org.au/governance/constitution/ (accessed 6 May 2020).

16 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, Constitution ss. 26-28, pp. 9-15.

17 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, Constitution s. 30 (a), p. 14.

18 The powers of the Primate are limited to those as specified in Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, Constitution, ss. 12, 20 and 23, pp. 4, 7-8.

19 Frame, Anglicans in Australia, pp. 74-75.

20 Peter Carnley, Reflections in Glass: Trends and Tensions in the Contemporary Anglican Church (Sydney: Harper Collins, 2004), pp. 1-21; Caroline Miley, The Suicidal Church: Can the Anglican Church Be Saved? (Annandale NSW: Pluto, 2012), pp. 119-23; D. Hillard, ‘Dioceses, Tribes and Factions: Disunity and Unity in Australian Anglicanism’, in T. Frame and G. Treloar (eds.), Agendas for Australian Anglicanism: Essays in Honour of Bruce Kaye (Adelaide: AFT Press, 2006), pp. 57-81.

21 Muriel Porter, A New Exile? The Future of Anglicanism (Northcote, Vic: Morningstar, 2013), pp. 25-44.

22 B. Kaye, ‘Foundations and Methods in Ecclesiology’, in B. Kaye (ed.), ‘Wonderful and Confessedly Strange’: Australian Essays in Anglican Ecclesiology (Adelaide: ATF Press, 2006), pp. 5-20 (18-20); T. Frame, ‘The Dynamics and Difficulties of Debate in Australian Anglicanism’, in Frame and Treloar (eds.), Agendas for Australian Anglicanism, pp. 139-69.

23 Frame, Anglicans in Australia, pp. 87-99.

24 K. Rayner, ‘The Decision-makers: By What Authority?’, in E. Lindsay and J. Scarfe (eds.), Preachers, Prophets & Heretics: Anglican Women’s Ministry (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2012), pp. 146-64.

25 S. Burns, ‘With Others’, in S. Burns and R. Gribben (eds.), When We Pray: The Future of Common Prayer (Bayswater, Vic: Coventry Press, 2020), pp. 15-20 (19).

26 Refer to Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Report of Case Study no. 3 Anglican Diocese of Grafton’s response to child sexual abuse at the North Coast Children’s Home (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2014), https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%203%20-%20Findings%20Report%20-%20North%20Coast%20Childrens%20Home.pdf (accessed 10 April 2021).

27 Transcript of P.J. Aspinall, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Case Study no. 3, Public Hearing, 27 November 2013 at 2422: 8-41, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%203%20-%20Transcript%20-%20North%20Coast%20Childrens%20Home%20-%20Day%20023%20-%2027112013.pdf (accessed 14 May 2021).

28 Transcript of P.J. Aspinall, Case Study no. 3, at 2421: 13-28.

29 Transcript of P.J. Aspinall, Case Study no. 3, at 2424: 21-41.

30 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Report of Case Study no. 36. The response of the Church of England Boys’ Society and the Anglican Dioceses of Tasmania, Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney to allegations of child sexual abuse (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2036%20-%20Findings%20Report%20-%20Church%20of%20England%20Boys%20Society.pdf (accessed 8 June 2021).

31 Robert Fitzgerald, Address to General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, Maroochydore, Queensland, 4 September 2017, my personal notes.

32 Royal Commission, Report of Case Study no. 36, pp. 145-46.

33 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Report of Case Study no. 42. The Responses of the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle to Instances and Allegations of Child Sexual Abuse, unredacted (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/case_study_42_-_findings_report_-_the_responses_of_the_anglican_diocese_of_newcastle_to_instances_and_allegations_of_child_sexual_abuse.pdf (accessed 3 June 2021).

34 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 627-32.

35 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 635-41; also Royal Commission, Report of Case Study no. 42, pp. 141-46.

36 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 632-35.

37 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, Constitution, ss. 53-63, pp. 21-30; Special Tribunal Canon 2007, pp. 370-86.

38 Information provided by the ACA General Synod Office, personal communication from A. Hywood to A. Taylor, 23 June 2021.

39 The Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, ‘Supplementary Report: A Model Episcopal Standards Ordinance (3.1)’, in Sixteenth Session of the General Synod 2014. Adelaide, 29 June to 4 July 2014. Book 7 Supplementary Materials (Sydney: The Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, 2014), pp. 7-034–7-095 (7-041–7-050).

40 Set out in Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 6, Making Institutions Child Safe (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), pp. 145-214 (146-56), https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_6_making_institutions_child_safe.pdf (accessed 10 June 2021).

41 United Nations General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child (New York: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, 1989), https://doi.org/https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/ProfessionalInterest/crc.pdf (accessed 9 June 2021).

42 For example, as set out in standard texts such as John R. Schermerhorn Jr, Paul Davidson, Peter Woods, Aharon Factor, Fatima Junaid and Ellen McBarron, Management (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 7th Asia-Pacific edn, 2019); Christine Mallin, Corporate Governance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 6th edn, 2019); and Jill Solomon, Corporate Governance and Accountability (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 4th edn, 2016).

43 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 598-612.

44 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 599-600.

45 For the General Synod resolutions on this Report, refer to the Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, Proceedings of the Thirteenth Session of the General Synod, 2–8 October 2004 (Sydney: The Standing Committee of the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Australia, 2004), pp. 46-53, https://doi.org/https://www.sds.asn.au/general-synod-session-2004-0 (accessed 5 May 2021).

46 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 600-601.

47 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, p. 604.

48 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 601-19.

49 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 612-15.

50 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 603-605.

51 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Case Study no. 52 Institutional Review of Anglican Church Authorities, Exhibits and Transcripts of Public Hearings, (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-52-institutional-review-anglican-church-authorities (accessed 1 June 2021). Note that there is no separate Report for Case Study no. 52.

52 For example, Transcript of B. Kaye, Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 17 March 2017 at 26633: 7-18. https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20260%20-%2017032017.pdf (accessed 18 December 2020).

Also ‘Statement of the Right Reverend Garry Weatherill – Schedule A’, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, Exhibit 52-0002, STAT 1300 001.0001 at 0031, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/STAT.1300.001.0001.pdf (accessed 18 December 2021).

53 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 562 and 759, endnote 47.

54 Transcript of P.J. Aspinall, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 17 March 2017 at 26626:21-32, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20260%20-%2017032017.pdf (accessed 18 December 2020).

55 Transcript of G.N. Davies, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 22 March 2017 at 27137:44–27138:2, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20263%20-%2022032017.pdf. (accessed 18 December 2020).

56 Transcript of G.N. Davies, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 22 March 2017 at 27138:26, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20263%20-%2022032017.pdf (accessed 20 December 2020).

57 Transcript of P. McLellan, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 17 March 2017, 26628: 20-24, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20260%20-%2017032017.pdf (accessed 20 December 2021).

58 Transcript of P. Freier, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 22 March 2017 at 27139: 18-22; transcript of A. Hywood, Case Study no. 52, Public Hearing, 22 March 2017 at 27141: 13-26, https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/Case%20Study%2052%20-%20Transcript%20-%20Institutional%20review%20of%20Anglican%20Church%20authorities%20-%20Day%20263%20-%2022032017.pdf (accessed 20 December 2021).

59 Refer to G. Blake, ‘The Anglican Church of Australia under the Spotlight of the Royal Commission: Its Systemic Failure to Protect children and a Catalyst for its Transformation’, St Mark’s Review 245.3 (2018), p. 12.

60 From my personal observation.

61 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, pp. 345-65.

62 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 3 Religious Institutions (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2017), pp. 305-308, https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/final_report_-_volume_16_religious_institutions_book_3_0.pdf (accessed 23 June 2021).

63 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, pp. 169-87.

64 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 614-15.

65 Standing Committee, The Constitution, Canons and Rules, pp. 342-44.

66 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 3, pp. 510-11.

67 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Redress and Civil Litigation Report (Barton, ACT: Commonwealth of Australia, 2015), pp. 314-21, https://doi.org/https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/redress-and-civil-litigation (accessed 3 June 2021).

68 National Redress Scheme for Institutional Child Sexual Abuse Act 2018, as amended, https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2021C00149 (accessed 23 June 2021).

69 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 714-54.

70 Information, correct at 9 June 2021, provided by the ACA General Synod Office, personal communication from A. Hywood to A. Taylor, 16 June 2021.

71 Information, correct at 5 June 2021, provided by the ACA General Synod Office, personal communication from A. Hywood to A. Taylor, 21 June 2021.

72 Royal Commission, Report of Case Study no. 3, pp. 23-33, 38-42; Royal Commission, Report of Case Study no. 42, pp. 319-20; Royal Commission, Report of Case Study no. 36, pp. 86-105.

73 Refer to K.S. Chittleborough, ‘Towards a Theology and Practice of the Bishop-in-Synod’, in S. Sykes (ed.), Authority in the Anglican Communion: Essays Presented to Bishop John Howe (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre, 1987), pp. 144-62; Kaye, An Introduction to World Anglicanism, pp. 122-23, 125-28; S. Piggin, ‘Australian Anglicanism in a World-Wide Context’, in Kaye (ed.), Anglicanism in Australia, pp. 200-22 (203-207); F. Shriver, ‘Councils, Conferences and Synods’, in S. Sykes, J. Booty and J. Knight (eds.), The Study of Anglicanism (London: SPCK, 1988), pp. 202-16 (208-10).

74 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 624-79; Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 3, pp. 304-308, 314-20.

75 K. Rayner, ‘Appendix to “Common Ground” Dialogue: The Bishop in the Anglican Church Today’, in R. Williamson (ed.), Stages on the Way II: Documents on the Bilateral Conversations Between Churches in Australia 1994–2007 (Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s Publications, 2007), pp. 60-68; A. Cadwallader, ‘Introduction: Antipodean Description of the Art of Episcopacy’, in A. Cadwallader (ed.), Episcopacy: Views from the Antipodes (North Adelaide, SA: Anglican Board of Christian Education, 1994), pp. 1-21; General Synod of the Church of England, Archbishops’ Group on The Episcopate, Episcopal Ministry: The Report of the Archbishops’ Group on The Episcopate (London: Church House Publishing, 1990); S. Rowland Jones, ‘Episcopé and Leadership’, in M. Chapman, S. Clarke, and M. Percy (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Anglican Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), pp. 451-63; ‘An Anglican Response by the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations to “The Episcopal Ministry within the Apostolicity of the Church”’, in S. Rowland Jones (ed.), The Vision before Us: The Kyoto Report of the Inter-Anglican Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations 2000–2008 (London: The Anglican Communion Office, 2009), pp. 77-95.

76 Royal Commission, Final Report, Vol. 16, Bk 1, unredacted, pp. 720-28.

77 J. Driver and S. Pickard, ‘“Re/placing” Bishops: An Ecumenical and Trinitarian Approach to Episcopacy’, St Marks Review 169 (1997), pp. 23-28; Martyn Percy, The Future Shapes of Anglicanism: Currents, Contours, Charts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2017), pp. 39-53; S. Pickard, ‘The Travail of the Episcopate: Management and the Diocese in an Age of Mission’, in Kaye (ed.), ‘Wonderful and Confessedly Strange’, pp. 127-55.