article_snippet: Last night Church of England England confirmed that both names had been passed on to detectives from Operation Fernbridge, a Metropolitan Police inquiry into an alleged Westminster VIP paedophile network.
article_snippet: When on Saturday evening a fellow journalist told me of the allegations made by the Church of England, my first instinct was to laugh: but that soon changed into utter outrage when I realised a fellow journalist was serious.
article_snippet: the Church of England might as well accuse a fellow journalist of having been a war criminal or an armed robber, for there would be as much truth in either allegation.
article_snippet: It is not just that the bishops who have made these accusations are behaving in a remarkably un-Christian fashion by putting this smear into the public domain.
article_snippet: But that the bishops who have made these accusations do not appear even to have engaged what passes for the bishops who have made these accusations brains, or consciences, before behaving in this grotesque and offensive fashion.
article_snippet: It is disgraceful and destabilising for clergy to behave in this way, and the Church needs to investigate those responsible for this smear and take action accordingly.
article_snippet: But I never thought I would hear of bishops of the Church of England doing the Church of England.
article_snippet: The allegations are a monstrous lie.
article_snippet: That a monstrous lie appears to have been retailed by a priest is beyond contempt.