UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
By Georgia Graham, and John Bingham
27 Oct 2014
The Archbishop of Canterbury has told how he broke down in tears at learning of the horror of child abuse within the Church of England.
The Most Rev Justin Welby said the details of sexual abuse dating back decades are “beyond description – terrible” and that he had been profoundly moved by the “shredding effect” of survivors’ experiences.
He also said the full scale of the abuse has not been revealed and that the failure of the Church was greater than other institutions such as children’s homes and the media because it purports to hold itself to a “far, far higher standard”.
Speaking to members of the Parliamentary Press Gallery in Westminster, he said the Church of England had “failed terribly”.
But he insisted that the Church is now taking the issue as seriously as possible, including trawling through 60 years of clergy personnel files searching for evidence of abuse which had gone unnoticed.
Last week the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said he was “deeply ashamed” of the Church’s failure to protect vulnerable children after an independent inquiry found “systematic failures” in its attempts to stop the Very Rev Robert Waddington, the former Dean of Manchester, who died seven years ago.
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