The CSSA confirms safeguarding audit judgements on eight religious life groups

2 March 2026

In an audit of their safeguarding practice today, eight religious life groups have been judged by the Catholic Safeguarding Standards Agency (CSSA) with the following grades:

Congregation of the Holy Spirit (Spiritans) – results being achieved

Jesuits in Britain – results being achieved

Marian Fathers – results being achieved

Missionary Society of St Paul – firm progress

Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd – not met

Religious Life Group (1) – firm progress

Society of the Divine Word – results being achieved

St Francis Xavier Foreign Missionary Society (Xaverians) – met with recommendations

The Inspectorate for England and Wales report that these eight religious life groups demonstrate varying levels of progress towards the eight national safeguarding standards.

Each offered some level of evidence to independent analysts from within the CSSA about how they help keep people safe, with more work to be done.

Steve Ashley, Chief Executive Officer, CSSA said: “These baseline results show varying standards of safeguarding across all eight church bodies.

“We have seen evidence of significant improvement in some. Where we still require improvement to meet our minimum standards, we have already taken action. Each must sustain progress and keep improving.  Only this way can they assure the public that everything possible is being done to help prevent harm.”

CSSA safeguarding audits for larger religious life groups range on a scale from: ‘below basic,’ ‘basic,’ ‘early progress,’ ‘firm progress,’ ‘comprehensive assurance’ and ‘exemplary.’

For smaller religious life groups, grades range from: ‘not met,’ ‘met with recommendations’ and ‘met.’ In each case, the overall grading represents a combination of their scoring across eight areas of work relating to safeguarding standards.
The CSSA publish the safeguarding audit and inspection results from every Catholic diocese, religious life group and eparchy in England and Wales.

You can find the audits for religious life groups HERE
ENDS

More information about the CSSA’s audit and inspection process can be found
HERE

Footnote:
[1] In accordance with CSSA practice, a redacted version of this report has been published in order to mitigate an identified risk of harm to individuals.