ENGLAND
Christian Today
December 4, 2017
By Harry Farley
The Archbishop of Canterbury is facing a mass call to overhaul the Church of England’s approach to sex abuse survivors after his letter to one victim was branded ‘painful’ and ‘disappointing’.
‘Gilo’, a survivor of clerical sex abuse whose surname is withheld to protect his identity, wrote an open letter to Justin Welby urging him to abandon the Church’s insurer, Ecclesiastical Insurance Group (EIG), in the wake of a scandal over its ‘derisory and heartless’ treatment of victims.
Welby replied last month and said the ‘complex issues’ Gilo raised were being addressed through a mediation process and said the question of mandatory reporting of abuse, which Gilo called for, was a ‘complicated question’ and ‘not as straightforward an issue as is sometimes suggested’.
But in a longstanding row over how seriously the Church takes allegations of abuse, Gilo said the archbishop’s response failed to answer the questions he raised.
‘There doesn’t seem any ownership of the crisis, nor recognition that questions such as these need facing at “archbishop level” and the clear call of leadership required to shift the Church into structural and cultural change and towards authentic justice,’ he said. ‘Until the Church buckles under the weight of these things – the shilly-shallying will continue.’
But a legal expert consulted by Christian Today said: ‘On the assumption that the issue might possibly give rise to legal action against the CofE, anything that any senior bishop says on the matter – let alone the Archbishop of Canterbury – must inevitably be guarded so as to avoid any premature admission of liability.
‘The Church’s lawyers would have been totally failing in their duty to their client had they not pointed that out and, in the circumstances, it’s difficult to see what else anyone could have done.’
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