UNITED KINGDOM
Anglican Communion News Service

[ACNS, by Gavin Drake] The silencing of abuse victims is itself a form of abuse “as bad if not worse than the first betrayal,” the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said. The Archbishop made his comments in a forward to the current issue of Crucible, which bills itself as the journal of Christian social ethics. Its current issue focuses on safeguarding children and vulnerable adults.

In it, Archbishop Welby said that when he was appointed to the post of Archbishop of Canterbury he “had mistakenly believed that the major changes needed in outlook had already been achieved” but that “it very quickly became apparent that [safeguarding] would have to be an area of major concern.

“Not only were some of the measures already taken only a beginning, the proper response to survivors and the embedding of a proper culture of safeguarding in…