UNITED KINGDOM
Yorkshire Post Today
EVIDENCE of widespread child sex abuse by priests has mushroomed over the past few years and has rightly shaken the faith of the global community of Roman Catholics, not in God but in their own clergy.
The latest manifestation of this is the case of Piers Grant-Ferris, respected priest and schoolmaster at Ampleforth College, North Yorkshire, who used his position of responsibility to abuse young boys on a regular basis.
The case is shocking, however, not only in Grant-Ferris's exploitation of the opportunities which his job gave him, but also for the way in which his crimes were apparently covered up by Church authorities.
The fact that the then abbot of Ampleforth was Basil Hume, who later became head of the Church in England and Wales, is of particular concern. Doubly so, given the police belief that senior college staff were aware of Grant-
Ferris's activities when he was sent away to work as a priest in Workington, and the fact that other members of the Ampleforth community went on to abuse pupils in later years.