SCOTLAND
BBC News
[video]
One of Scotland’s most senior Catholics has apologised on behalf of the church for decades of physical and sexual abuse of pupils at a boarding school.
The Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert, addressed parishioners at Fort Augustus in the Highlands.
His statement came after the BBC found evidence of physical and sexual abuse by monks at Fort Augustus Abbey School and its prep school in East Lothian.
The Benedictine order which ran the schools, has already apologised.
Bishop Gilbert’s address is the first time a senior Catholic cleric has spoken publicly about abuse at the abbey schools.
He told parishoners: “It is a most bitter, shaming and distressing thing that in this former abbey school a small number of baptised, consecrated and ordained Christian men physically or sexually abused those in their care.
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