Anglicans leave anti-slavery network

The Anglican Communion has followed the lead of the Vatican and withdrawn its support from the anti-slavery group, the Global Freedom Network (GFN) after the Pope’s representative signalled his uneasiness about the involvement of an Australian philanthropist, writes Paul Wilkinson.

The campaign was launched in December last year in a high-­profile ceremony at the Vatican by the charity Walk Free, founded by Perth-born mining magnate Andrew Forrest.

But in April, the name of Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo, who represented Pope Francis, disappeared from the GFN website. Then in August the bishop, who is chancellor of the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences, told the Italian newspaper La Stampa that the Vatican had walked away from the campaign because it felt the Pope may have been exploited.

At the time, a spokesman for the Walk Free Foundation disputed this and said “at absolutely no point in time” was it a business initiative.

Archbishop David Moxon, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s ­representative to the Holy See, who joined the executive board of GFN, has now also announced his departure. A spokesman said it was “important for the Catholic Church and the Anglican Church to remain aligned”.