Over the last couple of years, the UK National Workplace Bullying Advice Line has received several enquiries from ministers and others working for or with religious organisations. Cases appear frequently in the media. Not every minister has God in their heart. Whilst many enter the church to fulfil a calling, there are those whose calling is to indulge the opportunities for power and control over vulnerable clients and vulnerable fellow employees. The most likely course of action for a pedophile priest is to be protected and promoted.
Abusers protect each other.
In the UK, the MSF union has for several years been actively addressing the problem of bullying within the church, especially the Church of England. The UK parliament passed the Sex Discrimination Act in 1975 but the Church remained defiant. Fighting constructive or unfair dismissal becomes an impossible challenge when tribunals decide that your employer is not the church but God. In January 2000, Dr Lavinia Byrne, a doctor of theology and regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day , accused the Vatican of ongoing intimidation and resigned her position in a religious order after what she described as an Inquisition by those in the Catholic hierarchy opposed to women priests. The Catholic Church is no stranger to sex discrimination, albeit in the guise of a Doctrine of Faith, having wilfully excluded women from its hierarchy for 2000 years.