Paula Vennells faces test of faith and conscience at Post Office inquiry: Bird Lovegod

I can see why the Government is acting so quickly. It is, for once, a monumental screw-up that they themselves are not primarily responsible for although obviously they’ve known about it for decades. But now, by good timing, they are able to grab some kind of credit from the dumpster fire by ramming through a mass pardon for all those wrongfully prosecuted.

Even Paula Vennells has bent to the pressure of a million people signing a petition against her and as a result has ‘listened’. Right. It certainly wasn’t her own conscience she heard, that’s clear, or she would have handed her CBE back a long time ago, perhaps even along with the several million pounds of bonuses.

She is far from the only actor in this tragedy but I wonder how she feels, now the tide has so utterly turned against her. I don’t know if she feels any sense of shame, because I'm pretty certain some people don't actually have a sense of shame, of feeling bad at having done wrong.

I’m pretty certain many politicians are in this category, as are many people in prison, and many people who probably should be.

I do wonder about her as a person, because she’s an Anglican Priest, having been ordained in 2006. In fact she was shortlisted to be the Bishop of London in 2017, even whilst being in the position of Chief Executive of the Post Office, which was by then in full coverup mode. Which makes me wonder, which was the career and which was the hobby?

Did she actually know what was going on at the Post Office, or was she one of those executives who are so detached from the reality of the organisation that she was unaware of it? Perhaps that’s what she will claim at the public inquiry.

If the truth is she knew or suspected people were being wrongfully convicted, and if she knew the Post Office was covering up the situation, then she herself may well be personally liable. It’s a real and serious and very hard test of her faith and the depth of her Christianity. The truth shall set you free. And it may also cost her everything. But that’s the price of a real relationship with Jesus Christ. She’s certainly having an interesting walk with him.

I think perhaps she was one of those people for whom it’s all about climbing the ladder to the top, and once there you use that elevated position to look around for the next ladder to start on, already 90 per cent up it because of one's own current elevated standing. I can imagine such people being unaware of their own faults, after all, does not ‘success’ prove the case for them and speak for itself?

Once you're at the top of one ladder it’s so easy to step onto the top rungs of the next. She must have been so proud of the CBE to have held on to it for so long whilst deserving it so little. Pride is the worst of sins, it’s the core of all sin, and this experience must be for her a great battle with pride. I think it will be the making of her, as a real Christian, serving the poor and powerless for Jesus.

What a journey.

Bird Lovegod is a Christian commentator and business consultant.