O/t - Church of England

[avondalemiller]

Is he still in the House of Lords? If so why?

[KerrAvon]

I highly doubt that secular schools (as an environment where adults routinely encounter children) have anything like the amount of prolific abusers as religious organisations. I also doubt that, in general, the extremity of the individual cases are as vile, continuous, or destructive.

I'd also doubt that schools or academy groups, in general, would apply anything like the amount of effort religious organisations will to conceal, or protect the perpetrator, once cases are uncovered.

In my lifetime, I'd wager the same logic applies to childrens wards in hospitals, youth organisations such as scouts/girl guides, and organised sport.

I'm not sure that your doubts would be a huge comfort to victims from abuse in secular schools. Such doubts are certainly a comfort to perpetrators in such settings as they have allowed allegations to be brushed off as the malicious outpourings of disgruntled students.

There is a difference between churches and schools. The former are usually national or international organisations, which has allowed them to move problems on as a form of cover up. That?s just about the only difference insofar as abuse is concerned.

As for the Scouts, I feel that your wager is sadly misplaced:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/...scout-movement

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65881603

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/s...-***ual-abuse/

https://www.reuters.com/legal/litiga...nt-2024-11-06/

That took two minutes with Google.

Edit: Looks like 3 of the links don't work because the 3 letters s e x appear in the URLs, but hopefully you will get the drift.

[KerrAvon]

KerrAvon asked:
1. What are investigative journalists going to tell us that we don?t already know?
2. Why would such journalists spend their time breaking a story that has already been broken?

I'm struggling to understand why you seem to think there's nothing more to this story than the little bit we already know.

1. A good investigative journalist will dig deep into the details to uncover the complete scale of the abuse both historic and current.
People probably thought they knew about Al Fayed but only recently are the true scale of his abusive activities being exposed.
2. It's not about "breaking a story" it's about expanding it with a view to ensuring the perpetrators are brought to justice and then hopefully putting robust safeguarding measures in place.

This story does not end with the resignation of the hapless Welby. We are now being told that a further 30 bishops are under investigation and as someone has already said, that may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Don't you find these developments even slightly concerning?

The current story - the Smyth affair - concerns the actions of one individual (and possibly one accomplice as I understand it) and a lack of action at best, or a cover up at worst by the church. It has been the subject of an independent investigation that had access to church records and witness evidence. I'm not sure how you think some fearless journalist is going to get any more information or insight.

It's very much about a breaking a story for a journalist. Journalism is their living and story headed 'Investigation reveals what we already know' isn?t going to sell.

I think your reference to 30 bishops is a reference to the 30 church officials who are under investigation for their part in relation to the lack of action against Smyth? I think it?s absolutely crucial that process runs its course and that appropriate action be taken against any of them who are found to have failed to do what they should have done. What I don?t see is why the fact that 30 people are under investigations creates the need for an investigation. Can you see the issue there? It sounds like talking instead of acting upon what we already know.

[UlleyMiller]

I think my lifetime may be a deal shorter than the stories around scouting organisations would point at, certainly in terms of volume.

There is a difference between churches and schools. The former are usually national or international organisations, which has allowed them to move problems on as a form of cover up. That?s just about the only difference insofar as abuse is concerned.

No. The main difference is that one branch exists because of lies told years ago, and countless stories added to the original lies in order to retain credibility, and although there are known issues with what children are taught (history and maths are two known to me), they fundamentally empower people with the truth about the world and encourage them to think (relatively) freely.

Essentially, one is about preserving a series of lies, the other about developing truths. Contact and varying levels of abuse may exist in both, but the former is significantly more dangerous because of the preservation of all of its lies, and the fact that for various reasons abuse takes place in such incredible frequencies even if we don't look at cases on a 'per capita' basis or any other such metric.

I will never be anything other than amazed that these organisations exist in the modern world, and that's purely based on the ridiculousness of them - the fact they also serve as some kind of industrial scale grooming service without instilling a deep level of hatred from more outsiders is all the more absurd.

[Jocksgloves1]

What lies would they be exactly, Ulley?

[UlleyMiller]

What lies would they be exactly, Ulley?

They kept a book of them. Easily accessible and available at any library or one of their franchises.

[mellowmiller]

The current story - the Smyth affair - concerns the actions of one individual (and possibly one accomplice as I understand it) and a lack of action at best, or a cover up at worst by the church. It has been the subject of an independent investigation that had access to church records and witness evidence. I'm not sure how you think some fearless journalist is going to get any more information or insight.

It's very much about a breaking a story for a journalist. Journalism is their living and story headed 'Investigation reveals what we already know' isn?t going to sell.

I think your reference to 30 bishops is a reference to the 30 church officials who are under investigation for their part in relation to the lack of action against Smyth? I think it?s absolutely crucial that process runs its course and that appropriate action be taken against any of them who are found to have failed to do what they should have done. What I don?t see is why the fact that 30 people are under investigations creates the need for an investigation. Can you see the issue there? It sounds like talking instead of acting upon what we already know.

For someone who claims to be part of the legal profession I can't believe how out of touch you seem to be with what investigative journalists do.
I have a friend who is in a senior position at ITV and is currently leading a detailed investigation into something that was broken over a year ago but is apparently far more serious than we have been told so far. There is a lot more to come on that story so the investigation is digging deep into the details to expose the truth.
It's not all about scoops as you seem to believe.

[frogmiller]

Ulley,

Don?t forget about Oxfam, other charities and the foundations like the Clinton foundation that help the children after tragic disasters.

And the all girl schools in Africa own by a prominent chat show host.

[frogmiller]

Shhhhh

[Spuddy Speight]

Ooer! Alleged incidents early 2000's.