Posted on 10/21/2007 1:21:12 AM PDT by managusta
Child abuse has gone unchecked in the Church of England for decades amid a cover up by bishops, secret papers have revealed.
Information that could have prevented abuse has been "lost or damaged", concerns about individuals have been ignored and allegations have not been recorded. It means that the Church has no idea how many paedophiles are in its midst.
Lawyers warned last night that the Church faces a crisis as catastrophic as the one that engulfed the Roman Catholic Church and cost it millions of pounds in damages.
Richard Scorer, a solicitor who has specialised in child abuse cases, said that the Church of England's mistakes amounted to "an appalling, shocking level of negligence" that is likely to leave it open to claims from victims who have been too afraid to speak out in the past. The Church is to launch an urgent investigation on an unprecedented scale.
It will look at the records of thousands of clergy – including those who have retired – church employees, lay workers and volunteers dating back decades in an attempt to expose those who have previously escaped prosecution and identify those who pose "current risks". advertisement
Dioceses will appoint independent reviewers with access to all of their personnel files. These are due to be examined over an 18-month period.
However, the internal Church documents – leaked to The Sunday Telegraph – show that even if churchwardens, who are lay officials, are found to have previous allegations against them, the Church has no power to suspend them.
Bishops have called for the review following two high-profile cases last spring. One of the documents, compiled by the Church's Central Safeguarding Liaison Group, concedes that "most serious concerns will have been known by the senior staff at the time".
The Church has been guilty of systemic failures on a large scale, according to the document. "Some records may have been lost or damaged," it says, adding that warnings from psychologists might also have been ignored.
The liaison group was asked to draw up a review policy by the House of Bishops, which discussed the plans at its meeting earlier this month.
Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was at the meeting, has backed the need for a comprehensive review following the two child abuse cases.
"Every parish has got to have a child protection policy and it needs to work properly," he said.
The liaison group is chaired by the Rt Rev Anthony Priddis, the Bishop of Hereford, and includes the Rev Pearl Luxon, the Church's child protection adviser, as well as other clergy with experience in legal, social and probation work.
The bishops agree that "there may well be gaps in the Church's collective memory" that have allowed sex offenders to go unpunished. A confidential letter to be sent out as part of the review, says: "What has emerged is that had proper risk assessments been carried out in the light of concerns that may first have come to light about particular individuals many years ago, subsequent instances of child abuse might possibly have been prevented…
"It is clear that some incidents were dealt with in a way that meant that the ongoing risk posed by the individual was not fully assessed and contained."
The review has been welcomed by one victim. He said he had confided in a bishop – now retired – that he had been abused by a serving vicar, but that no action had been taken against the vicar.
"The Church has persuaded people in the past that they don't have to take it further," he said. "There has been a long-standing tendency to just sweep things under the carpet and cover things up and just move priests on."
While the Catholic Church has been hit by dozens of sex abuse cases, the Church of England had been relatively unaffected until spring this year. But in May, the Rev David Smith, 52, of Clevedon, Somerset, was jailed for 5½ years for sexually abusing six boys over a 30-year period.
Concerns had been raised about him in 1983, and again in 2001. The complainants were assured that the matter had been "dealt with".
In April, Peter Halliday, 61, a choirmaster from Farnborough, Hampshire, was jailed for 30 months after admitting abusing boys in his church choir in the 1980s.
It emerged that leading clerics had been told of his behaviour 17 years earlier, but he had been allowed to leave the Church quietly.
A spokesman for the Church said: "We would hope that in the majority of cases things have been dealt with, but we are realistic enough to admit that mistakes have been made and there may still be some risk attached to those cases."
As a convert from the Piskies to the Catholics, I can assure you that plenty of people on FR have blamed Catholic theology or discipline for the homosexual priests molesting the adolescent boys. This has not been confined to threads dealing with some aspect of the fallout from that situation. Pretty frequently, when there's any kind of thread about the Catholic Church, some drive-by snarker chimes in with, "Yeah, child molesters. Wouldn't happen if they allowed priests to marry." and unloads all his or her hostility to the Church onto the thread.
That routine has just gotten as old and tired as "hughly series" or "Bush's fault!", so when this thread came up a rejoinder of "Sez you!" seemed pretty natural to most of us.
You were just unfortunately standing in the line of fire at the time. If you weren't one of the aforesaid snarkers in the past (nobody is keeping a list), please accept my profound apologies on behalf of my annoyed brethren.
Your comments say a great deal more about you than anyone you are criticizing. Good evening.
“Your comments say a great deal more about you than anyone you are criticizing. Good evening.”
Good or bad?
“I can assure you that plenty of people on FR have blamed Catholic theology or discipline for the homosexual priests molesting the adolescent boys”
Well, my point is that to condemn all Protestants as if they all had that ignorant belief is well, bizarre.
It is accepted by many Catholics on this thread that somehow all Protestants are against their creed, and somehow revel in it’s misfortune. That’s just as ignorant a someone who blames Catholicism for gayness.
Fortunately, this Protestant can see stupid Catholics just as clearly as he can stupid Protestants.
The stupid Catholics on this thread seem to quite resent being identified with their stupid Protestant counterparts.
I only rail on the dumb ones.....the rest of you are smart enough to realize that your Catholic faith has survived much worse in it’s 2000 years than an idiotic comment or two (or two hundred) from Protestants that don’t bother to understand even basic elements of your faith before commenting.
Hey, I’m an ex-piskie, too. I got out just before they made homosexuality mandatory.
Damn straight.
Sodomites will be sodomites, unfortunately.
Until we as a people realize (again) the serious evil of sexual sin, of all types, homosexual and heterosexual, we will continue to see more of this sort of thing in the future. The “sexual revolution” (or “de-evolution”) of the ‘60s was a camel’s nose under the tent, bringing in all kinds of perversions.
And now in the popular culture it’s considered bigotry or “hate” just to call sexual sin perversion.
They know who they are. If you're not one, don't worry about it, nobody was blaming you.
You must have been at the other end of the Piskie high/low continuum if you didn't wind up with the Catholics (unless you wound up with the Orthodox). We were all so high our noses bled . . . as my dad says, "Up in the rafters with the bats."
“Nobody condemned “all Protestants””
Some took such offense at the comments of a few that they did use the broad brush. No matter - they define only themselves.
I stayed with traditional end of things Anglican - however that has its own issues - the traditional Anglicans haven’t coalesced yet. Most I think are still shellshocked from aboninations stacked upon abominations from the ECUSA.
We’ll figure it out eventually.
Uh huh.
Well, good luck. We got tired of waiting around for the Network or the Continuing crowd to get their act together. Plus we live in a traditionally “low” diocese, plus we had small children and couldn’t spend years waiting. Nor did I want to spend years without the consolation of the Sacraments . . . .
Some folks did, in fact, "[blame] rank-and-file Catholics, or Catholic doctrine for the molesters" ... but such folks aren't in their right mind.
Good luck to you, as well. Your kids will be well served by a Catholic upbringing.
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