Urgent call for interim report on Catholic Church by national sex abuse inquiry

ENGLAND
The Tablet

June 5, 2018

By Rose Gamble

We say that the Catholic Church, including Ealing Abbey, is not a safe place for children and it is not something we should wait to act upon

Lawyers have called on Professor Alexis Jay, chair of the national inquiry into child sexual abuse, urgently to produce an interim report on the Catholic church, saying it is “structurally, culturally and doctrinally incapable of implementing and enforcing the minimum standards of safeguarding”.

David Enright of the firm Howe and Co, who are acting on behalf of a group sexual abuse survivors, said that following a three-week hearing into the English Benedictine Congregation in December last year, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) had “heard enough” to compel it urgently to issue a report.

Mr Enright, along with other lawyers representing victims of sexual abuse, was making a submission on behalf of his clients to the IICSA panel at a preliminary hearing into the English Benedictines, which is due to consider evidence relating to Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School in Ealing over five days in February 2019.

“We say that the Catholic Church, including Ealing Abbey, is not a safe place for children and it is not something we should wait to act upon,” he told Professor Jay and the panel.

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