Queen’s former chaplain slates archbishop over Prince Andrew comments
THE QUEEN’S former chaplain has castigated the Archbishop of Canterbury over his comments about showing forgiveness to Prince Andrew.
In an exclusive interview with GB News, Dr Gavin Ashenden said Justin Welby said shown poor judgement and described Prince Andrew as “incompetent”.
He was speaking after the Archbishop said yesterday that Andrew was “seeking to make amends” by settling his sex abuse case with a settlement rumoured to be some £12 million.
“I don’t think forgiveness is very important because I think the judgement of the archbishop is poor, it’s almost as poor as Prince Andrew’s,” he said.
“There are two issues. One is Andrew’s. The reason he’s been sidelined is for incompetence, not because he’s hurt any of our feelings but but he refused to take the advice of his advisers and went took a public stand in which he failed to share the kind of sensitivity and any sense of what he had done with his association…
“The Archbishop has made it worse I think by bringing him back into the public space and attention when no good can come from it.”
Speaking during an interview with Colin Brazier on GB News, he said it was wrong to tell the public they should be forgiving towards him.
Dr Ashenden said: “By telling us that we will have been more forgiving towards Andrew I think is a category error.
“We’re perfectly entitled to say Andrew has made mistakes and because of these mistakes, he needs to take a backseat.
“You will forgive somebody if they’ve wounded you personally not because they’ve made a bad judgement professionally.”
He added: “And the archbishop, I don’t think he’s in a position to tell the people in this country that they have a moral duty to exercise forgiveness towards Andrew.
“We don’t owe him forgiveness, in terms of our judgement for the way in which he’s exercised his role as a royal member of the household.”
He also criticised the Archbishop of Canterbury’s recent intervention on the subject of immigration.
Dr Ashenden said: “I try to avoid being cynical but he’s just made a very serious mistake in hammering the Government for a piece of immigration policy entirely improperly, because he didn’t suggest any better way of doing it…
“This Archbishop has not managed to make the right judgments and it’s almost as if he’s trying to struggle to regain some form of his own competence, his own reputation in the public sphere, and really not managing it very well
