Former Sydney Anglican Archbishop Jensen says that sexual assault victims have taught him so much!!! He never knew that sexual assault has lasting psychological effects on the victim...especially when the victim discloses and is threatened with litigation...Speaking of litigation...did David Ould post something about this on his blog?

THE former Anglican Archbishop of Sydney has apologised to a victim of sexual abuse and admitted the response of the church to his allegations was wrong.
A witness, given the pseudonym BYC, has told a hearing of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse in Hobart he was abused on multiple occasions by a member of the Church of England Boys’ Society when he was a teenager in Sydney during the late 1970s and 1980s.
Bishop Jensen told the commission the church had failed to deal with the allegations of abuse victims and their aftermath.
“It has been so overwhelming to hear their testimony and to recognise how frequently we failed them,” he said.
“I head what BYC has said about the continued failure and about the way we speak and do not act.
“Again I wish to say to them they have taught me so much.

Say Dan...I wonder if he'd been so reluctant to act if it had been one of his children?

Bishop Jensen said that in the 1980s the culture in the church was a legal one and not a moral one.
“I believe it was under advice, but I believe it was quite wrong,” he said.

So is that why Robert Tong was given an Order of Australia

BYC’s mother also gave evidence this morning, saying the abuse had ruined her son’s life.
“I had no idea about the abuse while it was occurring,” she said.
She told the commission she met with Archbishop Peter Jensen in 2002 to tell him about her son’s case. The archbishop subsequently apologised to BYC in person.
But she said a church lawyer later warned her that if BYC pursued compensation “the church’s barristers will come out guns blazing and tear strips off you”.
She said the damage caused to her son by the abuse had been compounded by the unsympathetic response and inaction of the church.
Richard Kells worked with CEBS from 1976 and told the commission he made multiple attempts to raise the alarm about Jacobs but was repeatedly rebuffed by church officials.
He said he was ostracised by some members of the St Ives congregation because of his concerns and left the congregation in 1982.

Them parishioners are such nice fine upstanding people Roseanne.
I don't know Dan...it all sounds pretty abusive to me....It seems like there was a real systemic approach to the abuse of young people, women and gays... all victims of the church's abuse, blacklisting and threats of litigation. ...But how else do you implement God's word!