UNITED KINGDOM
Washington Post
Child abuse allegations mar anniversary of celebrated Anglican bishop
By Trevor Grundy| Religion News Service, Updated: Tuesday, June 25
CANTERBURY, England — Anglicans around the world are marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of one of their church’s greatest 20th-century heroes, a man who fought poverty and white racism in South Africa and mentored some of that continent’s best-known politicians and church leaders. …
But an explosive story in the magazine “Private Eye” sheds light on a recently released Scotland Yard file on Huddleston alleging the late apartheid icon was a child molester. The file from the 1970s was kept out of the public eye but today might have ended his illustrious career. …
There was speculation he might one day be appointed archbishop of Canterbury, head of the worldwide Anglican Communion.
But then Huddleston was accused by a local mother in the run-down East End of London of sexually harassing her two sons.
Although Huddleston denied the accusations, he told a senior police officer: “It’s all perfectly true. I have sat them on my lap and I have touched their bottoms and pinched them but there is nothing indecent. It was purely a mark of affection.”
In his report, the officer wrote: “He (Huddleston) has been outrageously indiscreet.”
In a book called “Trevor Huddleston: Turbulent Priest,” author Piers McGrandle said that after the accusation, Huddleston withdrew from public life for several months after suffering a mental breakdown.
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