LONDON (ENGLAND)
BBC News
Nov. 6, 2019
The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has told an inquiry the Church was “shocked to the core” by child sexual abuse perpetrated by members of the clergy.
The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said the community had struggled to cope with “the presence of evil embodied in its members”.
He said the Church’s culture had improved “radically” in recent years, but there was still “more to achieve”.
Victims said changes had been “slow”.
Giving evidence for the second time to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Archbishop Nichols said he had learned lessons about tackling abuse at a summit called by the Pope at the Vatican for senior bishops.
A letter the cardinal wrote to bishops in England and Wales following the meeting was shown to the inquiry.
He wrote that, during the meeting, “in me, something deeper changed”.
“A change of perspective. I began to see everything from the perspective of the victim/survivor,” he added. “That is a sobering perspective for us to take.”
Archbishop Nichols told the inquiry the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales had already implemented some of the measures discussed at the summit.
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