Archbishop is ‘ashamed’ of church’s sexual abuse
AN EMOTIONAL Archbishop of Canterbury told an inquiry yesterday he was “ashamed” of the Church of England’s record on sexual abuse.
The Most Rev Justin Welby told the hearing that the past three weeks of evidence relating to child sexual abuse in the Church had horrified him.
Asked what he had learned from the hearings, Mr Welby appeared to be fighting tears as he said: “I have learned to be ashamed again.
“You can’t read the transcripts, you can’t read the evidence statements without being moved. I don’t think I was ever complacent at any point. I hate this too much to be complacent.” In 2016, the Church of England was dealing with around 3,300 safeguarding concerns, a figure which includes historical allegations of sexual and non-sexual abuse. Many of the allegations claim the abusers were not brought to justice and that cases of sexual abuse were covered up.
Asked how the Church was addressing the issue of safeguarding, the Archbishop told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that he had implemented training, but that there was also a great need for a culture change from the attitude of “I’ve heard about a problem, but it was someone else’s job to report it.”
Mr Welby said: “That is not an acceptable human response. If you know a child is being abused, not to report it is simply wrong.”