AUSTRALIA
The Australian

DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 11, 2014

THE international head of the Salvation Army has written to the royal commission saying he was sickened by the revelations of widespread and brutal child sex abuse within the Christian organisation in Australia.

At least 157 men claim to have been physically and sexually abused while living at boys’ homes run by the army in NSW and Queensland, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

In what may be an unprecedented scandal in its international history, 23 men have been identified as alleged abusers, 19 of whom were officers or envoys of the Salvation Army itself.

In a personal letter to the commission chairman, Peter McClellan, the army’s London-based General Andre Cox said he has “been sickened by much of the harrowing evidence presented” to the hearing.

“I still struggle to comprehend that these…