UNITED KINGDOM
Belfast Telegraph
27 OCTOBER 2014
The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken of how hearing directly from the victims of the Church of England’s “total failure and betrayal” over historic sexual abuse caused him to break down in public.
In a frank assessment of the scale of the scandal, the Most Rev Justin Welby conceded that investigations into clergy going back more than 60 years would show that “there is more that has not been revealed”.
The Archbishop said he was “passionate” about exposing past failings after telling the mother of three boys sexually abused by the head of a CofE school that there was undoubtedly a “very significant legacy of unacknowledged cases”.
Abuse had been “rampant” across many institutions and the church was taking “all necessary steps”, he said in the letter seen by the Exaro News investigative website, adding that the historic “failure to face the misdeeds of those in its service is inexcusable”.
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