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Survivors of sex abuse by Christian clergy today responded with anger and shock to the Church of England bishop who said that everyone who failed to act on climate change was as guilty as Austrian child abuser Josef Fritzl.

Victims accused the bishop of being "facile and demeaning" towards Fritzl's daughter, who was kept in a cellar for 24 years, raped repeatedly and who had seven children by her own father.

The Bishop of Stafford, the Right Rev Gordon Mursell, an expert on Christian spirituality and near the bottom of the hierarchy of Anglican bishops, said that people who ignored global warming were, in effect, locking their children and grandchildren into a world without a future and throwing away the key.

Bishop Mursell, who spoke last year at a conference organised by the ultra-liberal Modern Churchpeople's Union, said in a pastoral newsletter to parishes that such people were "destroying the future of our children" and were "as guilty as" Fritzl.

The Bishop, whose comments come at the same time as the Church of England is publishing a new report complaining about the quality of its clergy, said that he was not accusing those who do nothing about global warming of being child abusers.

But he but said that shocking analogies were needed to force people to face up to the threat to the future of mankind.

In his pastoral letter, Bishop Mursell wrote: “Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck.

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is - we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key.

"We are right to be disgusted at these crimes. But mere disgust is too convenient. There are lessons for all of us to learn.”

Survivors condemned the Bishop and urged church leaders to take more action against abuse by clergy.

Margaret Kennedy, chair of Minister and Clergy Sex Abuse Survivors, an organisation that helps survivors of sex abuse by clergy, said: "It is with horror and shock that survivors sexually abused as children or as adults within Christian churches and by Christian clergy and ministers should hear their own bishop declare that perhaps buying oranges from South Africa is the equivalent to being locked into a dungeon and being raped repeatedly for 20 years by an evil father.