Cleric quits over abuse handling

AUSTRALIA
Perth Now

By Annette Blackwell
From: AAP
November 25, 2013

AFTER 50 years in the church, an Anglican priest says he doesn’t know if he can say he’s a Christian.

The priest, who was central to handling a group claim from people who suffered abuse in a NSW Anglican children’s home, has announced he is quitting the clergy.

In a surprise revelation at Monday’s hearing into how the Anglican Church dealt with victims of abuse at a children’s home in Lismore, the former registrar of the Grafton Diocese, Pat Comben, said he had relinquished holy orders.

Mr Comben was the first to hear of the allegations of abuse at the home and was central to the diocese’s handling of them for three years.

He said he’d signed the papers to leave the ministry on Friday, before taking the stand at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

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