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Anglicans Still in Denial about Child Abuse: Archbishop

West Australian
March 17, 2017

https://thewest.com.au/news/australia/anglicans-still-in-denial-about-child-abuse-archbishop-ng-b88418719z

The Anglican Church admits it put its reputation first and tried to silence child abuse victims yet many parishioners are still in denial that their beloved clergy could be paedophiles.

Church records show 1082 people have made complaints about 569 alleged perpetrators in the Anglican Church in Australia, although that is not considered the full extent of offending.

Brisbane Archbishop Phillip Aspinall said large parts of the church were still in denial about the suffering caused by child sexual abuse and that their clergy could engage in such behaviour.

“I think the bishops have got it but I think there are a lot of people in the church, on the ground, who still have not understood,” Archbishop Aspinall told the child sex abuse royal commission today.

Newcastle Bishop Greg Thompson, who is resigning after being harassed and feeling threatened for being a public face for child abuse victims, said there needed to be a “hearts and minds” shift.

“I’m wrestling with people who still don’t believe the trauma of child abuse and still believe that those coming forward are simply after financial return and that those who they loved and revered as their priests are still innocent,” he said.

“It is as if their devotion to priests and to the church comes before the genuine understanding of the suffering that many families and individuals continue to go through.”

The Anglican Church general synod’s general secretary Anne Hywood said it was clear there were times when the church did not act as it should and allowed harm to children to continue.

“We did not believe those who came forward and we tried to silence them,” she told the Sydney hearing.

“We cared more about the church’s reputation than those who had been harmed.”

Bishop Thompson said vested interests in the 23 Anglican dioceses were still undermining efforts to get a uniform national response.

He said clergy accused of abuse had been afforded a lot of protection, after previously describing a protection racket by powerful and influential people in his diocese.

Abused himself as a young man by senior clerics, he said some people would fight change “tooth and nail” and the veneer of “nice Anglicanism” was not the reality.

“I’m really disappointed that the national church hasn’t been galvanised for years to have a common national response,” he said.

“I think it’s been undermined by tribal interests, vested interests in keeping the jurisdictions, of not allowing someone else coming into our territory to tell us what to do.”

Australia’s Anglican Primate and Melbourne Archbishop Philip Freier said he was personally ashamed survivors’ voices were often silenced and the apparent interests of the church put first.

“We are deeply ashamed of the many ways in which we have let down survivors, both in the way we have acted and the way we have failed to act,” he said.

The church has paid $30.91 million in compensation to victims but only apologised to 25 per cent of complainants, the inquiry was told.

 

 

 

 

 




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