The pilot scheme is described as "a limited action with a limited aim". Any decisions about furloughing other clergy would be made in consultation with colleagues, parishes, and worshipping communities -- and, crucially, only after assessing the pilot scheme. "We have considered this very prayerfully and carefully," the statement said.

He was unmasked by The Telegraph last year and since then his victims have come forward on condition of anonymity to speak out about how the former vicar of Emmanuel Church, Wimbledon, south-west London, left them feeling "like a neglected and abused dog".

You would think, in these extraordinary times, that we could reasonably look to our Mother Church for guidance, wisdom and support. Perhaps we are just looking to the wrong Church? Or could it be that we are simply looking to the wrong leaders? Those who have somehow scrambled their way up the greasy poles to the gilded palaces of Lambeth and Bishopthorpe, and now inhabit tiny PC-worlds of their own creation seem to be ever-further removed from the world the rest of us inhabit.

Smyth died in 2018 after being exposed by Channel 4 as having abused young men he groomed through Iwerne.