UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
By John Bingham, Religious Affairs Editor
11 Jul 2015
Paedophile priests could get back into the pulpit despite a major overhaul of Church of England child protection rules to prevent a repeat of a series of sexual abuse scandals, the Archbishop of York has warned.
Dr John Sentamu voiced alarm that the long-awaited changes to ecclesiastical law, which were passed unanimously by the General Synod on Saturday, might not be enough to stop abusers already been banned from ministry from demanding to be reinstated.
The Archbishop, the second most senior figure in the Church of England, warned that even he has no power to demand to see the files of banned cleric from other dioceses who retire to his area and apply for a new permission to serve as a priest again.
He told the Synod that unless the loophole is closed, abusers could return to serve as priests in a different part of England and potentially reoffend.
Speaking as the Bishop of Durham, the Rt Rev Paul Butler, outlined a swathe of new safeguarding rules to the Synod, Dr Sentamu told of two separate cases where retired priests banned from ministry elsewhere had applied to him for PTO [Permission To Officiate] but refused to take part in a risk assessment.
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