Bishop is responding to royal commission

By Jamie Kronborg
Wangaratta Chronicle
December 07, 2015

http://wangarattachronicle.com.au/2015/12/07/bishop-is-responding-to-royal-commission/

WANGARATTA’S John Parkes is one of 23 Anglican bishops across Australia preparing answers to 51 questions put to them by the Commonwealth royal commission examining institutional responses to child sexual abuse.

The commission is seeking information about the structure and financial affairs of each Anglican diocese and details of clergy and lay appointees and the roles performed by them.

“At the heart of it there is something like 70 enactments or statements of the general synod or standing committee in relation to child sexual abuse,” Bishop Parkes told the Wangaratta Chronicle.

“I think the commission is interested to see how each diocese has dealt with those, what’s been adopted, (and) what the safeguards are.”

The bishop said the royal commission currently had a particular interest in the former Church of England Boys’ Society in dioceses across Australia.

A branch of the society had operated in the Wangaratta diocese but no institution, such as a home for children, had existed in which it had any role.