At last, Anglican Church sorry for decades of abuse

By Michael Mckenna
Australian
August 11, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/at-last-anglican-church-sorry-for-decades-of-abuse/story-fn59niix-1227019868218

AUSTRALIAN and British child sex victims have finally been vindicated after years of cover-up by the Anglican Church, with an ­official admission that one of its most senior clergymen was a pedophile who had been ­“allowed’’ to abuse children.

Archbishop of York John Sentamu has written to victims of the late Robert Waddington — a ­former Queensland headmaster who later ran hundreds of Anglican schools in Britain — saying he was “deeply ashamed’’ the church had not listened and acted on complaints of child sex abuse.

The extraordinary admission follows a year-long inquiry into Waddington, the former dean of Manchester who died in 2007, and the mishandling of abuse allegations in 1999, 2003 and 2005 against him from former choirboys and students in England and Australia.

The inquiry, sparked by a joint investigation of The Australian and The Times of London that showed Waddington’s trail of horrific rapes and beatings of boys over five decades and inaction by senior church officials, was headed by sitting English judge Sally Cahill QC. It also investigated the former archbishop of York, now Lord (David) Hope of Thornes who last year expressed regret at not reporting the allegations to police or other child protection agencies.

Archbishop Sentamu wrote in his letter to Waddington’s victims that “we in the Church of England should face up to the wrong which has been allowed to be done to those children who were abused by the late Robert Waddington’’.