All posts tagged: CofE

Parents, councillors and NSS oppose CofE school takeover

Parents, councillors and NSS oppose CofE school takeover

Published by Sam Flores

Parents, local politicians and the National Secular Society have set out their opposition to a proposed Church of England (CofE) school takeover in Guilford. The planned merger would amalgamate the larger Merrow Junior School – which is non-religious – and the smaller Merrow CofE Controlled Infant School. The resulting school would be a Christian faith school called Merrow CofE Primary School. As a ‘voluntary controlled’ faith school, Merrow CofE Primary could legally discriminate on the basis of religion in hiring, paying and promoting up to one fifth of staff. One quarter of its governors would be appointed by the Church. Its religious education (RE) would be inspected by a religious body, rather than Ofsted. A consultation on the merger run by Surrey County Council closed last week. The consultation only explored the possibility of the resulting school being a Church of England faith school. No option for a merged secular school with no religious character was included. The merger was proposed in response to falling pupil numbers at both schools. School should be “a welcoming …

Charity regulator censures CofE dioceses for safeguarding failures

Charity regulator censures CofE dioceses for safeguarding failures

Published by Sam Flores

Two Church of England dioceses have been rebuked by the Charity Commission for failing to properly handle safeguarding allegations. The regulator issued an official warning to the dioceses of Liverpool and Chelmsford over their handling of allegations of sexual assault against the former bishop of Liverpool, John Perumbalath (pictured). Perumbalath resigned last year after he was accused of sexual assault by two women, including Bev Mason, the bishop of Warrington. Perumbalath claimed “I have not done anything wrong and continue to do so”. A Charity Commission investigation found there was “a failure to properly handle safeguarding allegations” because trustees “who knew of the allegations failed to take action”. The dioceses did not report the accusations to the commission as a ‘serious incident’ when they were first made in 2023, and only belatedly did so when they were reported on by the media in 2025. The investigation concluded the failings “amount to mismanagement in the administration of the two charities.” A spokesman for the diocese of Chelmsford claimed “the matter was handled appropriately” and said the …

CofE marriages and funerals in decline, Church data shows

CofE marriages and funerals in decline, Church data shows

Published by Sam Flores

The National Secular Society has renewed calls for separation of Church and state, after new figures from the Church of England revealed the Church’s continued decline. The CofE’s 2024 ‘Statistics for Mission’ report, released yesterday, found “by almost every measure, in almost every diocese, Church of England attendance and participation was still significantly lower in 2024 than in 2018”, prior to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions. The figures demonstrated declines in CofE baptisms, marriages and funerals since last year, which the NSS said reveals the Church’s “rapidly diminishing relevance in British society”. Less than 2% people in England attend church at least once a month The report said the speed of recovery in church attendance and participation since the pandemic has slowed, “with smaller increases in attendance from 2023 to 2024 than in previous years”. Church attendance remained “some way below pre-pandemic levels”, the report said, while some measures of attendance “remained below projected pre-pandemic trends”. Average Sunday attendance at CofE services remains just over 1% of the English population. The CofE estimates its ‘worshipping community’ …

Parent speaks out against CofE school’s faith-based admissions

Parent speaks out against CofE school’s faith-based admissions

Published by Sam Flores

A father has criticised religiously selective school admissions after his son was rejected from a Church of England school. Adam Grainger applied for his son to attend St James’s Church of England High School in Farnworth, Bolton. But he says his family was told his son had not attended church enough to get in. A third of state funded schools in England are faith schools. Most kinds of faith schools have exemptions from equality law which let them prioritise families who demonstrate they share the school’s religion. The National Secular Society, which campaigns for inclusive education, said religious selection in state schools must end. Father: “religion clearly doesn’t matter that much, does it?” Grainger told The Bolton News that his son needed to have attended church twice a month to get a place at St James’s. But the son, 11, is only able to attend church once a month because he can find it “very stressful” due to a diagnosed anxiety disorder, he says. He says his son sometimes has to pull his coat over …

CofE doesn’t know how many children it has ‘exorcised’

CofE doesn’t know how many children it has ‘exorcised’

Published by Sam Flores

The Church of England does not know how many children have been subjected to ‘exorcisms’ under its auspices. Last month, the National Secular Society worked with Labour MP Sam Carling to table a parliamentary question asking how many “rites of deliverance” have been carried out by the CofE in the last ten years and, of those, how many were performed on children. The Church’s House of Commons representative Marsha de Cordova MP has now responded: “no data or records on numbers or type of deliverance ministry cases are held centrally.” She added that how deliverance ministry teams operate within dioceses is “the responsibility of each individual diocesan bishop”. When contacted previously, the dioceses of London, Southwark and Canterbury have not responded to requests for the same information. A report on church safeguarding last year highlighted how “poor data collection” undermined safeguarding efforts. “Laying on of hands” and ‘casting out of demons’ CofE ‘deliverance ministry’ guidance allows parents to consent to “formal rites of deliverance” for their children, “including those involving touch”. It may involve the …