UNITED KINGDOM
Huffington Post
Press Association
A bishop has said the Church of England “failed big time” over child protection as the General Synod formally apologised for clerical sex abuse.
The Rt Rev Paul Butler, Bishop of Southwell and Nottingham, said for “far too long” the Church of England, notably those in senior positions, had either disbelieved the stories of victims, believed them but tried to hide the truth away or hoped that by removing an offender the problem would go away.
“We can make all the excuses that we like about society being different in previous decades – or our understanding of abuse being so much better,” he said.
“We can note that our policies were different then and we followed those policies. But these take nothing away from the fact that we failed to listen properly, we did not acknowledge the wrong done, and we protected the institution at the expense of the person abused.”
He added: “We failed big time, we can do nothing other than confess our sin, repent and commit ourselves to being different in the years ahead.”
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