UNITED KINGDOM
NPR
June 22, 2017
COLIN DWYER
When faced with allegations of sex abuse against one of its bishops, the Church of England “colluded and concealed rather than seeking to help those who were brave enough to come forward,” the church’s leader acknowledged Thursday.
“For the survivors who were brave enough to share their story and bring Peter Ball to justice, I once again offer an unreserved apology,” Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury, said in a statement. “There are no excuses whatsoever for what took place and the systemic abuse of trust perpetrated by Peter Ball over decades.”
Welby was responding to the findings of an independent investigation into how the church handled the allegations against Ball, a former bishop who pleaded guilty in 2015 to indecent assault against young men. That report, also released Thursday, found that Ball “abused many boys and men over a period of twenty years or more.”
“That is shocking in itself but is compounded by the failure of the Church to respond appropriately to his misconduct, again over a period of many years,” Moira Gibb, who led the investigation, said in the report. “Ball’s priority was to protect and promote himself and he maligned the abused. The Church colluded with that rather than seeking to help those he had harmed, or assuring itself of the safety of others.”
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