Safeguarding competence is not a matter of sex or gender. Sex or gender does not make someone a safe pair of hands. Safeguarding is about judgement, accountability, humility, and moral courage. It is about how power is exercised, constrained, and scrutinised. It is about what happens when harm is disclosed, when difficult questions are asked, and when institutional reputation is at stake.

Victim-survivors don’t experience safeguarding as a policy. They experience it as a decision: will you protect me, or will you protect yourselves?

Many bishops now carry moral residue: the enduring weight of having chosen what was least disruptive rather than what was right.