Vatican Orders Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse Claims at UK Schools, by Amy Willis, The Telegraph, October 25, 2011

Vatican Orders Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse Claims at UK Schools

By Amy Willis
The Telegraph
October 25, 2011

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/the-pope/8848233/Vatican-orders-inquiry-into-child-sex-abuse-claims-at-UK-schools.html

Father Pearce, who also served as a Priest at Ealing Abbey, admitted to carrying out the attacks between 1972 and 2007

The top-level inquiry was ordered following investigations by The Times newspaper, exposing four decades of sex abuse by monks and lay teachers at Ealing Abbey and St Benedict's Independent School.

The newspaper claims led to "devil in a dog collar" Father David Pearce, the former headmaster of St Benedict's School, being jailed in 2009 for indecently assaulting five young boys.

Father Pearce, who also served as a Priest at Ealing Abbey, admitted to carrying out the attacks between 1972 and 2007. Other attacks by monks at the schools are thought to date back to the 1960s.

Another monk Father Laurence Soper, who was the former Abbot of Ealing Abbey, is currently being hunted by police after jumping bail. He disappeared earlier this month from the headquarters of the Benedictine Order in Rome.

However, an apostolic visitation was today ordered by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome over concerns that the scale of the scandal is much greater than initially feared.

The inquiry, which will be the first of its kind in Britain, will be led by Bishop John Arnold, an auxiliary Bishop of Westminster, and Father Richard Yeo, president of the English Benedictine Congregation.

The move will be seen as a rebuke to senior Roman Catholics in Britain who had previously insisted that the UK's child-protection policies are "first-rate".

At the height of the revelations, the Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, was accused of refusing to apologise to a victim for his suffering at the hands of the Church.

There were also questions over why the Archbishop had allowed Father David Pearce to remain at Ealing Abbey despite being a known threat.

He later issued an apology saying the "terrible crimes" were a "deep shame" on the Catholic Church.

The results of the inquiry will not be automatically made public but Bishop Arnold and Father Yeo's recommendations will be sent to the Congregation in Rome which will decide whether or not to impose any new safeguards.

A similar apostolic visitation was ordered by the Vatican last year in Ireland after a report exposed "endemic" abuse at Catholic schools in Dublin.