The report of Dame Moira Gibb into the Church of England’s handling of the abusive bishop Peter Ball makes shocking reading. It reveals a concern for appearance over reality, for the institution over the individual and, most of all, for the strong and powerful over the weak and vulnerable. From the moment the first victims came forward, the response of the church up to the highest level was one of institutional self-protection.

The complaint was not reported to the police, but only to the archbishop of Canterbury, then George Carey, who persisted long past the point of reason in hoping that his colleague was innocent. The police were not told until after the first victim to come forward, Neil Todd, had attempted suicide twice – and even then it was his parents and not the church who made the complaint. The diocese of Gloucester hired a former policeman to investigate, and if possible discredit, the witnesses.

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After news of Bishop Ball’s arrest broke, Lambeth Palace received seven independent accusations about his earlier behaviour. Two were seen by Archbishop Carey, who replied to them personally. Only one of the seven, though, was passed to the police, and that the least damning. Lord Carey’s message to the diocese after Bishop Ball was arrested urged prayers for the bishop and said nothing about victims. After Bishop Ball had retired on spurious grounds of ill health and accepted a caution – though remaining in denial about his crimes – Lord Carey worked to have him rehabilitated. True, he did so with less ingenuity than Peter Ball’s identical twin Michael, himself a bishop, who has admitted allowing his twin to deputise for him at “one or two events”, even after his disgrace.

Lord Carey nevertheless gave Peter Ball £12,000 from church funds, leading to loud complaints from the brothers, who had wanted £20,000. He deliberately kept Peter Ball’s name off the Lambeth blacklist of unemployable clergy; he had the disgraced bishop to stay at Lambeth Palace twice; he attempted to find him work in South Africa (writing to Desmond Tutu for this scheme) and in prisons; he wrote to an American parish that “Peter was possibly the victim of a plot but that, of course, cannot be proved”. Lord Carey’s only objection to a full rehabilitation of Bishop Ball as a retired bishop was that it might provoke unfavourable publicity.

This was disgraceful, and the result has been a deserved disgrace. But it was part of a culture of privilege, power and make-believe that corrupted more than one bishop. Lord Carey’s successor, Rowan Williams did nothing to help Bishop Ball but very little and very slowly to hinder him either.

Justin Welby, the current archbishop, has acted with much greater energy. But there is no reason to think this is the last of the scandals. The case of John Smyth, a flagellant evangelical QC highly placed in the public school network that introduced Welby (and other bishops) to Christianity, has still not been entirely cleared up. Meanwhile, the church persists in public and private hostility towards gay clergy in public and consensual adult relationships. For a priest to marry their same sex partner is a sacking offence. Again, the guiding principle here is to avoid scandal and maintain appearances at whatever cost. In the light of the Gibb report, a church that claims to preach the truth would benefit from paying it more attention.