The transcript for today's hearing is here.
Today, the inquiry heard from former diocesan safeguarding adviser Peter Turner and from Abbot Martin Shipperlee.
The inquiry is already running seriously behind time, Shipperlee's evidence should have been completed this morning and evidence from former Abbot President Richard Yeo should have been heard this afternoon.
The delay is no surprise, the inquiry was warned months ago that a week would be insufficient for this hearing. It is not yet clear how all the necessary evidence will be fitted in.
If you want just a brief sense of what was covered today, have a look at the inquiry's Twitter feed for the day.
Shipperlee's evidence continues tomorrow.
Wednesday 6 February 2019
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Abbot Martin resigns. Inevitable. Too little too late. https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/11346/abbot-of-ealing-abbey-resigns-over-failure-to-report-abuse
ReplyDeleteI’ve read the transcripts. Shipperlee (who taught me) is a nice but wholly inadequate person to have dealt with this. I am someone who thinks himself unshocked by human behaviour but the fact that the Vatican bank knew where Soper was (his actual address in Kosovo) but did not reveal it to the police leaves me bewildered. I am forced to wonder whether religious education is simply incompatible with the proper or moral upbringing of children. If places such as St Benedict’s were secular institutions they would simply have been closed down.
ReplyDeleteAlas it was the sole reason why Shipperlee was elected Abbot of Ealing in the first place. The predatory paedophiles who manipulated affairs at the school and abbey knew their man and knew how inadequate he would be to the task of holding sexually abusing monks and others to any account.
DeleteThey were right about this man.
The knowing where Soper was, wiring him money and, simultaneously, lying to the police ("We don't know where he is") tells you all you need to know about the Vatican: it is corrupt to the core and cares more about the wellbeing of a child molester than it does for the people whose lives he has ruined. Why ANYONE with any ounce of common sense of shred of decency still WANTS to send their kid to these schools beggars belief. Isn't the school's motto "Teaching a Way Of Living"? What does this teach? "If we think you are important enough, you can rape with impunity and we will cover for you"? Anyone reading this who still puts money into the Church's coffers, you should be hanging your heads in shame. If not, why not?
DeleteShipperlee has finally resigned.
ReplyDeleteWhether there will be a criminal investigation into his responses is unclear
Ealing Abbey must now take steps that will initiate the process of its its own dissolution as a monastic foundation. If it declines to pursue such a course then calls must be made for its suppression.
The monastic charade has gone on for long enough
To be frank my first instinctual question is Why would anyone want to belong to Ealing Abbey? I was a postulant at Cockfosters Priory (itself now closed and one of the monks in prison) and used to go to Abbot Rossiter for spiritual direction. It is horrifying that in one day I managed to be in the company of three now-convicted child abusers! The only human response to this is for Ealing to be suppressed.
ReplyDelete