Following on from his research contribution to the Government’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), Gordon Lynch, Michael Ramsey Professor of Modern Theology in the Department of Religious Studies, has contributed a piece to The Tablet website, the international weekly Catholic journal.

The article, entitled ‘Why Serious Questions about Catholic Child Migration Need Answers’, builds upon Gordon’s research into child migration in the first half of the twentieth century. In the piece, he argues that the Catholic Church failed to take sufficient care in protecting child migrants from abuse, even by standards of that time.

‘There is clearly a somewhat greater recognition in the Church of its failings now,’ Gordon concludes. ‘The question remains whether this will translate into further action in supporting or compensating former child migrants. Will it also lead to more open reflection by the Church about how it could have given theological and pastoral sanction to so damaging a policy, including making its archives about its own organisational policies more open to external scrutiny?’

To read the full article, please see the page here.