LONDON (UNITED KINGDOM)
The Catholic Weekly [Archdiocese of Sydney NSW, Australia]
February 3, 2025
By Jonathan Luxmoore
Groups acting on behalf of abuse victims have urged Britain’s Catholic Church to speak up on a case that sent shockwaves throughout the United Kingdom and respond to fresh claims about the mass rape of children by mostly Muslim “grooming gangs,” being attentive to victims that may come from their communities.
Campaigners are shocked by the lack of accountability for state officials who ignored the abuse and disappointed by the church’s silence on the issue.
Advocates like Timothy Dieppe and Antonia Sobocki stress that victims are turning to the church for help and that church leaders must speak out against these abuses, regardless of the cultural sensitivities involved.
“When something like this happens, it’s an affront to everyone’s human dignity, and those engulfed by this pandemic of sexual abuse need the church now more than ever,” said Antonia Sobocki, Catholic director of the British-based LOUDFence organisation.
“The job of church leaders isn’t just to make the church safe, but to provide a refuge for people everywhere. But there’s clearly an anxiety they’ll be labelled racist if they call this out, or accused of hypocrisy given past abuse accusations against the church itself.”
The grooming gangs’ actions, which spanned decades, have led to numerous prosecutions, but public figures have downplayed the scale of the problem.
Claims that gangs of men, mainly of Pakistani descent, had groomed, drugged and raped thousands of girls from disadvantaged backgrounds across Britain were confirmed by local reports in Manchester, Oldham and Telford in 2020-2022.
One victim told the BBC in 2024 that as her abuse happened in early 2000s, she was “let down” by police—an allegation to which the police responded with an apology and “profound regret” for “poor service.” The victim told the BBC that she was raped more than 100 times starting at age 12.
In October 2022, a 468-page report was published by child protection expert professor Alexis Jay, after a seven-year Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, or IICSA, received evidence from over 7,000 survivors.
In response to the scandal that spinned in the British media throughout the month of January, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper launched a national audit and local inquiries to investigate the societal and cultural factors contributing to the abuse.
However, church leaders remain hesitant in publicly commenting on the issue. Victim-advocates are calling for the church to offer a place of refuge and support for all affected, regardless of background.