ENGLAND
The Tablet
December 16, 2017
By Rose Gamble and Alex Daniel
‘The victims were abused by those who they had been brought up to see as God’s representative on earth’
There is something inherent in the “very nature” of the English Benedictine Congregations’ schools and monasteries that has contributed to and “even enabled” the scale and extent of child abuse, the national inquiry into child sex abuse has heard.
On the final day of a three-week hearing into the Congregation as part of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which is taking place in London, the inquiry heard closing statements, including recommendations, from four lawyers representing victims of abuse.
Dominic Ruck-Keene, who is acting on behalf of a group sexual abuse survivors, said he believed the role of the abbot in the English Benedictine Community is of particular concern.
Abbots, he told the inquiry, hold “too much power” and are subject to a conflict of interests. An abbot’s desire to maintain the fellowship of a community has “a very real effect on safeguarding decisions and actions” he said.
Likewise, he said, monks and priests could sometimes be seen as figures who are beyond reproach.
Mr Ruck-Keene said he noted past and continued institutional weaknesses of the English Benedictine Congregation, including a lack of central direction; a lack of central record keeping; and active investigation and management of abusive monks, even when the Abbot had been informed of particular concerns about individuals.
All these he said, “appear to have contributed to the erratic and inconsistent record of individual abbeys understanding and implementing what were meant to be national safeguarding policies.”
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