UNITED KINGDOM
The Belfast Telegraph
March 14, 2018
Former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams addressed the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
A sexist and misogynist culture in the Anglican Church may have contributed to failings in tackling child sex abuse, the former Archbishop of Canterbury told an inquiry.
Lord Rowan Williams, who held the post from 2002 to 2012, said the Church still has a “mindset”, but not a “dominant ethos”, of being a “close-knit male body of clergy protective of their dignity and authority”.
He made the comments while giving evidence in London on Wednesday afternoon to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.
Fiona Scolding QC, the lead lawyer for the Anglican strand of the inquiry, is examining how the Church of England handled allegations of sexual misconduct stretching back to the 1950s, first focusing on the Diocese of Chichester.
She questioned Lord Williams after reading a statement from retired judge Baroness Elizabeth Butler-Sloss who described how she found there was a “culture of denial” about child abuse among police and clergy in Sussex and said the diocese had an “anti-woman culture”.
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