Safeguarding Is Not a Weapon. Silence Is.

Written By Kevin Jessup

On a postponed consecration, a Facebook comment, and why survivors must be heard no matter how long it takes for them to speak out.

This week, the consecration of Canon Tim Lomax as Suffragan Bishop of Warwick, in the Diocese of Coventry, was postponed. It had been due to take place on 6 November. According to the diocese, complaints were received after his appointment was announced in September and it has been advised that further enquiries should be made before anything goes ahead. The Church Times tell us that the complaints prompted a meeting of the Church of England’s National Safeguarding Team, which is now making those enquiries.

Before I say anything else, I want to be absolutely clear, because fairness matters here as much as it does anywhere. We do not know what these complaints are about. We do not know who made them. The diocese itself has said that at this stage “no findings have been made and no conclusions have been reached.” The complaints have not been substantiated, and they have not been dismissed. The process has barely begun. Canon Lomax is entitled to a fair hearing and to have it said plainly that being the subject of a complaint is not the same as having done anything wrong.

I’m holding that thought firmly. But I also want to talk about something this story has exposed, which matters far beyond one appointment: how some people still react when anyone raises a concern.

Why my mind went straight to Soul Survivor

When I saw the headline, I thought immediately of Soul Survivor. Canon Lomax was the Bishop’s Visitor to Soul Survivor Watford, the diocesan role meant to provide a line of oversight between the church and the Diocese of St Albans. When the church suspended two pastors in June 2023 following information submitted to the investigation into Mike Pilavachi, the trustees asked Executive Pastor Jon Stevens to lead in the interim, with senior support from Canon Lomax as Bishop’s Visitor. The Bishop of St Albans later told Diocesan Synod that Lomax and his wife, Revd Kate Lomax, had been a regular Sunday presence offering support, advice and pastoral care and that he also attended trustees’ meetings. The diocese has also said that, from 2016, the annual review of Soul Survivor’s Bishop’s Mission Order was shaped by questions he drew up with the then Bishop of Hertford.

So it is notable that the Church Times went out of its way to report that these complaints do not relate to children or young people and do not concern Soul Survivor. I take that at face value. It was right to say it and I want to repeat it here so nobody reading this draws a connection that has been explicitly ruled out.

The comment that stopped me

What has stayed with me most is not the story itself but a comment left beneath the Church Times’ Facebook post about it:

“Illustrating the disastrous way safeguarding is now being weaponised.”

(I’m not naming the person who wrote it. Who they are isn’t relevant; what they said is.)

Someone replied, more gently than I would have managed:

“oof. Its been a very bad time to be a survivor of abuse in the last few years. Better to err on the side of caution one would think?”

(Again, I’m not naming them, for the same reason.)

How can anyone be so tone deaf? Complaints have been made. The Church has paused, as its own processes require, to look into them properly. Nobody has been found guilty of anything. Nobody has been condemned and yet within hours, someone reached for the language of weapons and warfare, as if raising a concern were an act of aggression and the person who raised it were the danger. That instinct is exactly what so many of us who were at Soul Survivor recognise. It is the instinct that protected Mike Pilavachi for decades.

Silence was the weapon all along

If we’re going to talk about weapons, let’s be honest about which ones have actually done the damage. For years, the weapons were silence, deference and reputation. They were the quiet word in the ear that it would be “unhelpful” to raise something. The suggestion that questioning a leader was questioning God. The fear that speaking up would cost you your church, your friends, your faith community and sometimes your sense of who you were. The knowledge that the institution held the power, the platform, the lawyers, the press office and all the playing cards, while you held nothing but your own word.

That isn’t safeguarding being weaponised. That is the absence of safeguarding being used as a shield.

When people finally find the courage to speak, often after years of being shut down, disbelieved or simply ignored or worse still heard and silenced, they are not attacking the Church. They are doing what the Church should have made safe for them to do all along.

Why it can take so long to speak

One of the most corrosive ideas in all of this is that a concern raised late must be less credible. “Why now?” people ask. “Why didn’t they say something at the time?” “Why wait until he’s about to become a bishop?” I want to speak to this generally, not about this case, because we know nothing of the detail and I am not suggesting anything about who complained or why. Anyone who has spent time listening to survivors knows the answer. People speak when they are able to, not when it is convenient for anyone else. Shame, fear, loyalty, faith, dependence on a community, the sheer power and popularity of the person involved: all of these keep people quiet, sometimes for decades. Many don’t even have the words for what happened to them until much later. Some only find the strength because they see someone else go first.

Moments of public recognition, such as an appointment, a promotion or an honour are often precisely when people feel they can no longer stay silent. That isn’t suspicious. It’s human. Watching someone you have concerns about be handed more authority, more influence and more trust is the point at which staying quiet starts to feel like complicity. Time does not make harm less real. It does not make a voice less worth hearing. The passing of years may make things harder to establish and a fair process has to take that into account. But it is never a reason to refuse to listen.

Safeguarding protects everyone, including the accused

Here’s what the “weaponised” crowd seem to miss. A proper, careful, independent process is not only there for the people who raise concerns. It is there for the person they are raised about, too.

If complaints are investigated thoroughly and found to be unsubstantiated, that person can step into their ministry with the matter properly closed, rather than with a cloud hanging over them that was never dealt with. If they are substantiated, then the Church has stopped someone being given more power than they should have. Either way, pausing to look properly is the responsible thing to do. Rushing ahead to avoid embarrassment is what got us here in the first place. What safeguarding cannot be is a process that only works when it’s comfortable for the institution, or one that is quietly resented the moment it touches someone popular, well-connected or senior.

Real accountability, not just accountability to God

I’ve written before on this site that clearance is not the same as accountability and that institutions should never be left to mark their own homework. That matters here too.

Our leaders should be held to a higher standard, not a lower one and I mean a real account: open, independent, and answerable to the people they serve, not just “accountable to God” in a way that conveniently asks nothing of them here and now. Bishops hold enormous influence over clergy, parishes and the vulnerable people in their care. The Church owes it to everyone to be sure, before it hands someone that authority, that any concern has been heard and properly examined. That means independent investigation, not internal reassurance. It means communicating honestly with the people affected, not just issuing carefully worded statements. It means proper support for everyone involved, the person who raised the concern and the person it concerns. And it means accepting the outcome, whatever it is, without spin.

Where this leaves us

So let me say it one more time. We do not know what these complaints are about. Nothing has been found, and no conclusions have been reached. Canon Lomax deserves a fair process and so do the people who came forward. Both of those things can, and must, be true at once. But I won’t stay quiet when the first reaction to someone speaking up is to call it a weapon. That reflex has done untold damage in our churches and too many people have paid for it with their faith, their wellbeing and their years.

I’ll be following this story very carefully.

And if you have been holding something for a long time, wondering whether it’s too late, whether you’ll be believed, whether it’s worth it: it isn’t too late. Your voice matters, however long it has taken to find it. Reach out, speak out, be heard!

—————————————————————————

Sources

Glossary

  • Consecration: the service in which a priest is made a bishop.

  • Suffragan bishop: an assistant bishop who supports the diocesan bishop in running a diocese.

  • Bishop’s Visitor: a senior cleric appointed by the bishop to provide oversight of, and a link with, a church operating under a Bishop’s Mission Order.

  • Bishop’s Mission Order (BMO): the legal arrangement that allows a new church, such as Soul Survivor Watford, to operate within the Church of England outside the usual parish system.

  • National Safeguarding Team (NST): the Church of England’s central safeguarding team, which handles complex cases and those involving senior clergy, including bishops.

Kevin Jessup
Next

Churches Need To Do Better