Welby ‘ashamed’ of Church over abuse
A form of tribalism among some Anglicans allowed paedophile clerics to thrive, inquiry is told
The Archbishop of Canterbury has said he is “ashamed” of the Church of England as he admitted he had a “sense of failure” over its treatment of abuse victims. Giving evidence at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse yesterday, the Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church’s discipline process for accused clergy was “not fit for purpose”. He also warned that factionalism within the Church had allowed paedophile clerics to thrive.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury has said he is “ashamed” of the Church of England as he admitted he had a “sense of failure” over its treatment of abuse victims.
Giving evidence at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse yesterday, the Most Rev Justin Welby said the Church’s discipline process for accused clergy was “not fit for purpose” and needed reform.
“The damage it does to victims and survivors, the damage it does to people against whom a complaint is made, is extraordinary,” he said.
Asked about the lack of responsibility taken by individuals for failings in the Church, he warned that Anglican tribalism had allowed paedophile clerics to thrive.
“Factionalism” leads to a “failure to deal with atrocious behaviour, because it becomes ‘my cause, right or wrong’,” he said.
Citing a letter sent earlier this month to this newspaper by a group of conservative Church of England figures defending George Carey, the former archbishop, he said: “A lot of it goes down to tribalism, within the Church. Different groups who felt the liberty of defending their own position, right or wrong.
“It’s exemplified by a comment that was made recently by a group of people from a particular part of the Church, who said ‘if you attack any of us, you attack all of us’.
“I think what one saw in Chichester was that meetings were dysfunctional, relationships were poor, and where we
‘There has been a culture where some groups felt besieged … therefore there was a loyalty to one another’
allow that to happen you will then get all other kinds of horrors, terrible things, because people have already got antagonisms and then the blame culture, the way of laying off responsibility becomes easy.”
The inquiry has focused on the diocese of Chichester, where a series of priests were found to have sexually abused children and young people, including Peter Ball, the former bishop of Gloucester, who was found in an independent report last year to have been protected by Lord Carey.
Lord Carey was asked to step aside from his role as an honorary bishop by the Archbishop following the publication of the report. Ball accepted a caution for gross indecency in 1993 and resigned as Bishop of Gloucester, but continued to officiate as a priest in the Church of England until 2010.
He was jailed in 2015 for sexually abusing 18 teenagers and young men between 1977 and 1992.
The group’s letter suggested that Lord Carey, who may face a criminal investigation for his role in the Ball case, was being targeted because of “what he represents of biblically faithful Christianity”.
Fiona Scolding QC, the lead counsel to the inquiry, also asked the Archbishop about the influence of gender and sexuality on its attitude to abuse.
He said that changes in the Church, such as the ordination of women, had caused some groups to become more “inward-looking”.
“That is very prone to covering up all kinds of faults, and particularly the most egregious ones, [of] which safeguarding has got to be at the top of the list. I think there has been a culture where some groups felt besieged and threatened and therefore there was a loyalty to one another, but I’m not sure it’s about gender. I think it’s about power and a loss of power and a loss of respect,” he said.
“I don’t know how to express adequately how appalled and how ashamed I am of the Church for what it did to those who are survivors and are coping with this,” he added.