An official investigator found the Church of England’s 2010 sexual abuse inquiry “failed” to adequately report the extent of abuse within the church.
Sir Roger Singleton, who reviewed the church’s 2010 Past Cases Review, said that it “failed to give a complete picture” because it narrowed down the definition of abusive clergy by limiting its reporting of abuse instances “to just new cases and cases where the church took formal action,” according to the BBC. The oversight is significant, however, Singleton said there was “no evidence of a planned deliberate attempt to mislead.” (RELATED: Head Of Church Of England: ‘I Am Ashamed Of The Church’)
The report also left out cases involving retired and deceased clergy and that a survey conducted by the church as part of the investigation did not cover some cathedrals and parishes, according to Singleton. Also excluded from the report were allegations of grooming and sexual offenses that have been decriminalized, meaning that cases of abuse involving children as young as 16 were not included. Singleton also said the Church of England overemphasized the positive aspects of the report in order to “protect the interests of the church.”
Email exchanges from 2010 also suggest clergy tried to limit the damage done to the reputation of then-Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and to limit possible comparisons between the Church of England and the Catholic Church’s abuse scandals.
“The real danger here is that these stories are used to suggest that the [Church of England] is as bad as Rome, both in abuse and cover-up” and “the aim must be to distance the current [Archbishop of Canterbury] from it as much as poss,” read one such email to Williams, according to the BBC.
Williams told the BBC he had not seen the email at the time it was sent.
Singleton said he believed that the church’s report was “well intentioned” but was ultimately an incomplete job.
The Church of England, for its part, outlined four steps for improving its approach to preventing and reporting abuse. The steps include “closer working with the Catholic Church to support survivors of sexual abuse,” creating an independent panel with survivors of sexual abuse that will help to redress past instances of abuse, stricter criteria for candidates for the priesthood, and establishing an independent ombudsman who will oversee the responses to allegations of abuse.
The church proposed, as part of the stricter criteria for recruitment, to use psychometric testing on candidates for the clergy to weed out pedophiles, according to Christian Today.
“The Church of England’s Selection Criteria for ordained ministry needs to be sufficiently robust in order to give assurance that candidates for the ordained ministry pose no safeguarding risk,” read a church report published Friday, according to CT.
The church is also reportedly looking into other possible tools to prevent pedophiles and potential child predators from becoming priests.
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