Oppressed and Afflicted

Repentance and atonement are to priests what laws and taxes are to politicians; which is to say, strictly for the little people. With its failure to protect the young from abuse and its protection of itself at the cost of the victims embarrassingly exposed, the Church of England has learned the expectable moral lesson: an official document by its national director of safeguarding accuses the Church's victims of abuse and bullying. It is no doubt un-Christian in a survivor of priestly fun and games to deny forgiveness to the institution that facilitated the frolics; and it remains as yet unclear whether staff on the receiving end of the allaged bullying will be inclined to follow the precepts of the Sermon on the Mount and hand over cloak as well as coat to the litigious enemy. Certainly the heavenly indifference recommended by the Saviour is conspicuous by its absence in the ongoing and interminable debate over how far non-heterosexuals shall continue in their status as second-class Anglicans. The gays have not pledged themselves to celibacy and self-loathing unto death, and the gay-baiters have not offered up their churches as homosexual dating clubs; although doubtless each side's prayers for the other's redemption will be just as effectual as ever.