" Christianity makes a thousand promises but keeps none" Neitzche
It's over a year now that the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, set up by Theresa May in 2014 following the Jimmy Savile scandal finally published its report. The report made shameful reading, the report spoke of the Church of England failure to take abuse of children seriously and created a culture were abusers were allowed to hide. the day before the report was made public the vile Archbishops of York and Canterbury both made apology's for church's shameful failures to act on allegations of child sex abuse. The head of the inquiry team how ever was scathing about the Bishops statements claiming they say right things but still take no action. The inquiry team also highlighted how the Church had placed barriers in front of victims which were impossible to overcome to cover up their complaints Even during the inquiry abuses continued with 449 complaints of sexual abuse against children in 2018, one church insider has claimed in 2019 there were 600 complaints including several rapes which are being covered up. The Anglican Church in Wales who refused to open its records to the inquiry, was for me a clear example of how the church is still refusing to face up to it's crimes.
The report told how between 1940 to 2018, 390 members of Church of England clergy or people in positions of trust with in the church were convicted of sexual offences against children. These included the Bishop Peter Ball a close friend of the Prince of Wales who was jailed in 2015 for 32 months for abuse of boys. The Church turned a blind eye to his crimes and allowed him for over three decades to abuse boys even when in 1993 he was caught abusing a boy he was allowed to carry because he was a friend of the Archbishop of Canterbury Carey. The Rev Robert Waddington who was dean of Manchester Cathedral in 1980's and 1990's was responsible for hundreds of sexual acts against boys for over 5 decades , yet his crimes were covered up at highest level. In 2014 Rev Ian Hughes was convicted of having 8,000 indecent images of children on his laptop, but was still supported by his Archbishop Peter Forster. Tom Story a church youth leader caught abusing boys but allowed to carry on working with children, because a Bishop said he had expressed remorse ! in 2016 he was convicted of rape and given 15 years. These few story's are just a tip of the iceberg of the abuse of our children that's been going on for decades within the Church of England.
It is very clear to any one who reads the report that alleged perpetrators were given more support then victims, church was to ready to forgive and protect paedophiles, in an attempt to cover up the abuse and protect the Church's reputation. I would like to write here that some of these Bishops who failed to protect children from sexual abuse had resigned but not one has. I don't think they understand by harbouring and protecting paedophiles for decades they have undermined the moral purpose and trust the church once held. The Church's are empty because the public no longer trust them or believe in their fairy tales. The English people don't trust their promises to stop further abuse occurring. While the number of Clergy in Church of England convicted of sexual abuse against children is high, there are possibly five times that number who have had their crimes hidden or who died before they were brought to justice. One last point I would like to make is this report was only on the church of England we know the Catholic church has a much bigger problem and many of Protestant sect have also had a history of covering up abuse to protect their reputations.
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