The censure of a Church of England cleric over the John Smyth abuse scandal is actually a victory for traditional Anglican doctrine and practice.

The C of E announced on August 6 that a Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal has upheld a complaint by the Church’s National Safeguarding Team (NST) against the Revd Canon Andrew Cornes.

The C of E press release said: ‘The Tribunal was satisfied that in 1982 Mr Cornes received a disclosure of abuse from a victim and survivor of John Smyth. The Tribunal found that Mr Cornes was under a duty, as part of his office as a priest in the Church of England, to take action to protect the young and vulnerable from harm by reporting the information he received, and that by failing to do so he was neglectful in the performance of his duties.’

After the tribunal ruling against Cornes, the Revd Bernard N. Howard, a respected commentator on the various abuse scandals in English conservative evangelicalism, posted on X:

‘Finally, nearly ten years after John Smyth’s abuse was exposed by Channel 4 News, at least one Church of England minister has been formally censured for negligence.’

Howard posted the most significant part of the tribunal’s ruling:

‘Having considered all the evidence presented, we do not consider that the respondent [Cornes] acted on the information in a way which was appropriate or to be expected even in 1982. No safeguarding policy was necessary or training required to appreciate that disclosures such as that which he had received needed to be passed on to others for a number of reasons: the account needed to be confirmed, the victims were entitled to protection and the perpetrator had to be exposed and desistance and discontinuance of those activities brought about.’

The tribunal continued:

‘Without further enquiry the respondent could not know that was taking place. There did not need to be a safeguarding or any other policy in place to appreciate that the response to the disclosure would be part of the duties of a cleric. Perhaps more so in this case where there was clearly more than one victim involved and the scriptures appeared to be being used to justify what were at least unacceptable and at worst appalling practices in the name of the church.’

Cornes’s defence that there was no church safeguarding policy in place in 1982 failed because of the Ordinal, the Ordering of Deacons, Priests, and Bishops in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The duty under the Ordinal for an ordained minister to uphold the teaching of Holy Scripture and to care for Christ’s people does not require a safeguarding policy to become valid and binding.

Cornes, a retired clergyman in Chichester Diocese, was handed a conditional discharge for 12 months, which means he can resume ministry under his Permission to Officiate (PTO) as long as he keeps a clean sheet in that period.

On X, the Revd Dr Charlie Bączyk-Bell, a prominent LGBT campaigner in the C of E, called on Cornes, a conservative evangelical and former Vicar of All Saints Crowborough, to resign his membership of the Crown Nominations Commission (CNC), the body that appoints diocesan bishops. He also called on Cornes to resign as an honorary canon of Chichester Cathedral.

But Cornes is no longer eligible to be a member of the CNC. He was a member of the last General Synod, whose five-year term ended in July. Having been elected to the CNC by the previous Synod, he automatically comes off that committee. Surely he would have to be out of his mind to try to get re-elected to Synod in September?

As for his honorary canonry, would he really have the brass neck to exercise his preaching rights at Chichester Cathedral? Unless his self-awareness level is about 1000 degrees below zero, what is the likelihood of that?

In December 2024, the Religion Media Centre (RMC) reported that 10 clergy named in the Makin review, published the previous November, had stepped back from ministry.

‘One of them is Canon Andrew Cornes, a retired clergyman attached to All Souls Eastbourne, a member of the General Synod and the Crown Nominations Commission, which will appoint the next Archbishop of Canterbury,’ the RMC said.  Chichester Diocese has not said whether Cornes will be resuming public ministry under his PTO.

Out of the 10 clergy named in the Makin review against whom the NST brought disciplinary complaints in February 2025, the Church’s President of Tribunals, Sir Stephen Males, has cleared six of them. These include former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey; the Revd Paul Perkin, former Vicar of St Mark’s Battersea Rise; the Revd Canon Hugh Palmer, former Rector of All Souls Langham Place; the Revd Tim Hastie-Smith, an incumbent in Gloucester Diocese; the Ven Roger Combes, former Archdeacon of Horsham in Chichester Diocese; and the Revd John Woolmer, a retired clergyman in Leicester Diocese.

Three clergy still have disciplinary actions hanging over them – former Bishop of Durham, Paul Butler; the Revd Sue Colman and the Revd Nick Stott.

Whatever the outcome of the actions against these clergy, the tribunal’s ruling in the Cornes case upholds the Ordinal, which states clearly that ordained ministers are called by God. Therefore, they must uphold biblical godliness in the waythey treat Christ’s people and they don’t need a safeguarding policy to tell them what godliness is.

Julian Mann, a former Church of England vicar, is an evangelical journalist based in Lancashire, UK.