This article traces the developments in the laws and guidance underpinning safeguarding practices in the Church of England over the last 30 years and critically analyses the methodologies used, and outcomes reached, in a number of Lessons Learnt Reviews (including the Makin Review).

This article considers the common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel; the development of the Law Commission’s recommendations on offences against religion and public worship in 1985 (which ultimately led to the abolition of the offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel in England and Wales in 2008); and proposals from various international bodies which now argue for similar reform.

The newly coined term ‘synodality’ has for some years been receiving widespread and close attention, and its potential is difficult to delimit. Synodality is a composite concept, with a range of applications, abstracted from the traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches expressed in varied synodal institutions and events. Synodality might be defined as the process by which Christians gather to dialogue, discern and at times decide. This article examines one of synodality’s levels – the parish – in the Roman Catholic Church.1

On 2 February 1932, Alan Don, chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury Cosmo Gordan Lang, recorded in his diary the simple entry: ‘Church Assembly – not very invigorating’.1 This has been the tenor of the relationship between the English and the governing bodies of the church for centuries. This article seeks to describe the role of synodality at the regional level2 by reference to the General Synod of the Church of England, with a brief comparative study of the tikanga system in New Zealand, and asks the question whether the procedures meet the expectation of synodality.

Other articles in this issue of the Journal have examined different levels of government, whether in the Catholic Church or in the Anglican Communion, and presented the notion and practice of synodality at that level of the institution in question. This article takes a different methodological approach by examining the various categories of the faithful, and discusses their different roles in the processes and structures provided for in Roman Catholic canon law that might be called ‘synodal’.

The XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops (4 October 2023 to 27 October 2024) considered what it means to be a ‘Synodal Church – Communion, Participation and Mission’. Its celebration was key to understanding the pontificate of Pope Francis: in October 2015, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the Synod of Bishops by St Paul VI, he said: ‘From the beginning of my ministry as Bishop of Rome, I sought to enhance the Synod, which is one of the most precious legacies of the Second Vatican Council […] it is precisely this path of synodality which God expects of the Church in the third millennium’.1 This article examines the extent to which the Roman Catholic church can be said to be synodally led and episcopally governed.