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Good morning The need for public bodies to be proactive in co-operating with the independent inquiry into abuse in England and Wales has been in the news again, following Archbishop Justin Welby’s promise to survivors hurt within the Church of England that if the CofE is not dealt with early in the public inquiry he will himself initiate a past cases review. This, together with the review of the Methodist Church published at the end of May and the ongoing court case against a former Roman Catholic archbishop, demonstrate that it’s not only the cultures of secular institutions that need changing. Whilst revelations about abuse in any institution rightly cause shock and outrage, it is perhaps most difficult for the public to take revelations about abuse and the failure to listen to survivors within the Christian Church, partly because the churches have already spent many years trying to put their houses in order, and partly because the Christian Church claims to stand for what is holy and just and good. It does not help much to say that God alone is holy and just and good, or to make the obvious point that churches are made up of the same fallible people as other social organisations. This is a truism, and yet because the Church historically has believed that it exists to be a divine society that genuinely has power to help people live in the presence of God and so become more whole and holy, it can struggle to listen to those whose testimony evidences not only the sin of individual Christians, but the failures of its own structures. Indeed the recent World Council of Churches document, Towards a Common Vision, reveals that there are still sensitivities in some Christian churches about saying that the Church itself can be guilty of sin. It is manifest to a watching public, however, that in this matter, not only certain individuals are to blame, but that the churches themselves are guilty of the sin of failing to listen, to act and to change, something acknowledged by the General Secretary of the Methodist Church who offered an unreserved public apology to survivors on 28th May. As in the Christian rite of penitence, however, apologies are not enough. There also needs to be reparation where it is possible and a genuine amendment of life, along with a certain humility on behalf of those who claim to offer access to God’s holiness and healing power - for any who are members of churches need to remember that whatever treasure we have, we hold in clay jars - and for that reason, as we seek to meet people at the points of their deepest needs and longings, we need to offer robust safeguards against our own frailty and blindness. A key way to judge the success of any future reviews and this public inquiry, will be, therefore, not only how any individuals identified a s being a danger to others are dealt with, but the effectiveness with which independently identified changes to institutional practice are implemented.