Clergy Status in the Age of the Royal Commission
The quest for satisfactory alternative mechanisms for addressing clergy unfitness In the early years of this century both the Anglican and Catholic Churches established alternative regimes for addressing the unfitness in clergy and other Church workers.97 The schemes created mechanisms for investigating allegations and determining factual issues in a fair manner, usually with recourse to internal review. Lay men and women with particular skills were for the first time given formal roles in the investigatory, assessment and internal review stages of the determinations. For Anglican clergy, deposition from Holy Orders is a possible outcome of this so-called “professional standards” scheme which originated with a 2004 resolution of the General Synod. It is enacted through canons of the General Synod for diocesan bishops and interlocking diocesan legislation for other clergy and church workers. A National Professional Standards Register, established under canon of General Synod,98 records information about clergy and laity against whom notifiable complaints or charges have been made, or convictions or sentences recorded, in relation to sexual offending and abuse. Much of the credit for this scheme goes to Garth Blake SC99 and it is very appropriate that he has this year been made a Member of the General Division of the Order of Australia. Unlike the system for determining charges for ecclesiastical offences mandated under the Constitution, the Anglican professional standards system focuses on the present and future fitness of church workers to continue service in the Church. This is not to say that past conduct or failures are irrelevant or that, where the church workers are clergy, past events (even ecclesiastical offences) may not trigger the option of proceeding down either path if it is available.100 As indicated, the potential outcome of an adverse professional fitness process against a member of the Anglican clergy extends to his or her deposition from Holy Orders or the exercise of Holy Orders. A roughly parallel scheme addressing the continuing fitness of Anglican diocesan bishops was introduced in 2007 and revamped in 2017.101 It too sits alongside the ecclesiastical offences regime for diocesan bishops established by the Constitution (s 56) and the Offences Canon 1962 (s 2). Examinable conduct is not confined to sexually-related failings. Once again, deposition from Holy Orders may be the outcome, although a 2017 Canon has clarified that the partial removal of orders is a particular option. In 2017 the scheme was also amended to ensure that retired diocesan bishops did not fall through the net where child protection is concerned.102 It goes far beyond the scope of this lecture to discuss the details of the professional standards regime. But let me make three short observations about the recent developments, relevant to the broader themes of this lecture.
97 98 99 100 101 102
The Catholic scheme called Towards Healing is not confined to sexual abuse of children or to clergy failure to respond to such abuse by others. National Register Canon 2007. Garth Blake’s article “Ministerial duty and professional discipline in the Anglican Church of Australia” in (2010) Ecc L J 53 has been a very informative resource in preparing this lecture. See Harrington at [43], Slater at [12], [98]. See Episcopal Standards Canon 2007 (discussed in Slater at [126]-[134]), Episcopal Standards (Child Protection) Canon 2017. See Episcopal Standards (Child Protection) Canon 2017.
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