Interim Report ...

Archbishop of Canterbury
August 30, 2012

http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/canterbury//data/files/resources/2604/INTERIM-REPORT-OF-THE-COMMISSARIES-APPOINTED-BY-THE-ARCHBISHOP-OF-CANTERBURY-IN-RELATION-TO-A-VISITATION-UPON-THE-DIOCESE-OF-CHICHESTER.pdf

[full text]

INTERIM REPORT OF THE COMMISSARIES APPOINTED BY THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY IN RELATION TO A VISITATION UPON THE DIOCESE OF CHICHESTER

Your Grace,

FOREWORD:

St Luke tells us that the people brought infants to Jesus that he might touch them. (St Luke 18:15ff). When his disciples tried to stop this practice Jesus called for the children saying,

„Let the little children come to me, and do not stop them; for it is to such as these the Kingdom of God belongs.?

Not only did Jesus encourage children to come to him, not only did he offer love through touching them, but they were manifestly safe in his company.

All contemporary safeguarding policies and procedures in the Church should be a response to what we learn and see in Jesus himself. Children are meant to be safe in the care and company of the Christian Church. In witness to this faith and to our sense of obligation to children who are brought to Jesus through the life of the Christian community, the Church should set for itself the highest standards of care available to our society today. If that is true especially in relation to children, it ought also to be true for the care we offer to some of the most vulnerable adults in the modern world (see St James 1:27).

It has been particularly distressing to us to have met people whose lives have been deeply wounded by the abuse they have suffered at the hands of clergy and of lay people holding positions of responsibility in the Church. Sadly, these wounds often refuse to heal.