Archbishops at war as sacked Carey hits out

FORMER Archbishop of Canterbury George Carey has attacked his successor Justin Welby for sacking him from an honorary post over the way he dealt with a highprofile sex scandal.

In a Christmas letter to friends, Lord Carey has spoken for the first time about his treatment by the Most Rev Welby regarding his handling of allegations against Bishop Peter Ball.

The 82-year-old lashed out at the ‘unjust’ request for him to step down over his supposed failings 24 years ago.

Peter Ball, former bishop of Lewes and Gloucester, was released from jail in February after serving 16 months for grooming and abusing 18 vulnerable men between 1977 and 1992. An independent inquiry criticised the Church of England’s handling of the case, finding it had colluded with Ball rather than trying to help those he harmed.

The Church, at the highest levels, had appeared to be most concerned with ‘ protecting itself’, the report said.

As a result, Archbishop Welby made an unprecedented request in June of asking Lord Carey to ‘carefully consider his position’ as honorary assistant bishop in the diocese of Oxford.

In his letter, Lord Carey writes of ‘the shocking insistence by the Archbishop that I should stand down from ministry “for a season” for mistakes he believes were made 24 years ago...his decision is quite unjust and eventually will be judged as such’.

Although written in November, the letter was sent out at the weekend. It comes at the end of a turbulent week for the Church after Archbishop Welby was criticised over how he dealt with sex allegations against George Bell.

He refused to clear the respected former bishop of Chichester, even though an independent review concluded Bishop Bell’s reputation had been destroyed as the Church ‘rushed’ to accept claims he was a paedophile on the say- so of one accuser almost 60 years after his death.