AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Emilie Gramenz
A former Sydney Anglican archbishop has told a royal commission he did not understand the long-term effects of sexual abuse on children.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard allegations of a multi-state paedophile ring operating within Church of England Boys Society (CEBS).
Former Archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen, who retired in 2013, has told the Hobart hearing that even in the 1990s many in the clergy did not understand the real nature of perpetrators, or the long-term impacts of child sexual abuse.
“Even though I occupied a senior position in the church, I still wasn’t fully aware of the impact that such abuse has on survivors and their families,” he said.
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