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| - The most senior Catholic cleric in England and Wales has sometimes focused more on protecting the Church's reputation than supporting victims of sex abuse, an independent report said on Tuesday. The government-commissioned Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) published its findings following earlier probes into abuse by priests, including at top private schools. The Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, had failed to take personal responsibility, the inquiry's 144-page report alleged. In the cases of two victims, he "demonstrated a lack of understanding of the impact of their abuse... and seemingly put the reputation of the Church first", it said. Nichols admitted he had failed to respond to some emails from an alleged victim of abuse, whom safeguarding team members at his diocese described as "needy" and "deeply manipulative". After details of another case were leaked to media in 2018, the alleged victim was told the Church would not issue a statement for fear of negative coverage of the pope. The report slammed the "laboriously slow pace of change", saying a code of conduct for priests took 13 years to draw up. "The overall impression created by these delays is that the Catholic Church still does not give sufficient urgency and priority to implementing all safeguarding recommendations," it said. It recommended mandatory safeguarding training for all staff and volunteers and external auditing of the Catholic Safeguarding Advisory Service. It urged the Church to publish a response to its recommendations within six months. The Catholic Church in England and Wales said it welcomed the report and apologised to "victims and survivors who have not been properly listened to, or properly supported by us". It said the report would be discussed at a bishops' meeting beginning next week. Roughly seven percent of British people are Roman Catholic, according to a 2018 survey, while the official religion is Anglican. Between 1970 and 2015, allegations of abuse were made against 936 clerics and lay workers in the Catholic Church, the report said, although the true scale is likely to be "far higher." Historically, institutions in the Church "actively took steps to shelter and shield those accused of child sexual abuse", it said. Between 2016 and 2018, there were roughly 100 allegations of child sex abuse per year, according to the Church's national safeguarding commission. Last month, the IICSA issued a damning report into the Church of England for protecting predatory priests rather than young victims of sexual abuse. am/phz/jxb
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