Bishop: church struggled to cope with issue of child abuse

THE Catholic community has been struggling to cope with “presence of evil embodied in its members” for decades, the most senior Catholic in England and Wales has told an inquiry into child sexual abuse.

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster, was talking about the lessons he learned from attending a worldwide conference of senior Roman Catholic bishops on tackling the problem.

He told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that he attended the summit in Rome in February. Cardinal Nichols said the church in this country had already implemented some of the measures discussed.

Speaking about the Catholic church in Britain, Brian Altman QC, the lead counsel for the inquiry, asked: “Did you come away thinking, first of all, we haven’t done enough?”

Cardinal Nichols agreed “in some aspects”, citing the example of a Bishop from Puerto Rico who encouraged the topic of child safeguarding to be spoken about in every parish.

Cardinal Nichols said: “I think we should do more in the general life of our parishes to set the task of safeguarding in a more positive context.

“I think the experience in the Catholic community in this country over the last 20 years has been one of struggling to cope with the presence of evil embodied in its members, which has shocked it to the core.”

Calling for a state body to oversee changes to the church, Richard Scorer, of lawyers Slater and Gordon who act for 27 abuse victims in the inquiry, said: “Cardinal Nichols’s evidence will cut little ice with victims.”