An organisation which is planning to take over the running of an additional 100 secondary schools in England has been slammed for its "irresponsible" behaviour and "covering up" child abuse by its staff. The controversy covers one of its staff members who was jailed this week for abusing three school boys. When the organisation found out about the child abuse, they did not tell the police and arranged for their employee to leave his position "quietly".
A senior spokesperson for the organisation said that at the time - 1990 - this was the "way things were done" and "I think that we make the mistake of trying to read back what we now know and how we now do things."
If you haven't guessed yet, the organisation involved here is the Church of England and the spokesperson who didn't "know" covering up for child abusers was wrong in 1990 was Reverend Mark Rudall of the diocese of Guildford.
And yes, this would be in the same week when the Archbishop of Canterbury accused politicians of lacking "moral leadership" and arrogantly asserted that we need the religious to know more about morality - implication that us non-religious folk don't know right from wrong whereas bishops and reverends would.(try telling that people who were abused as children only to see the local bishop attempt to cover up the crimes)
Of course, if anything this week's events has demonstrated the opposite, showing how religion can pervert normal morality by putting the interests of the church, over the interests and rights of children. It's not an untypical or isolated case as some experts are estimating payments to victims of sexual abuse by priests in the United States could reach $1bn.
The Church of England's first instinct was to cover up. It has taken secular advances in social care and human rights to drag the reluctant churches at least partially into the modern era.
Comments