Catholic Church Condemned in Abuse Report

Herald Sun
November 13, 2013

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/hope-for-action-on-vic-abuse-report/story-fni0xqi4-1226758611843

Concealing sexual abuse should be a crime, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse says. Source: AAP

CONDEMNATION of the Catholic Church in Victoria for its betrayal and neglect of abused children seems certain to have a sequel in the findings of the royal commission into institutional sexual abuse.

In a report that will go a long way to vindicating the thousands of children abused by the clergy and others, the country's biggest church and some of its most respected institutions have had their sins laid bare.

The parliamentary committee found Catholic clergy in Victoria and the Salvation Army the main culprits in inflicting "unimaginable harm" on children, compounding their behaviour with a culture of denial and concealment.

Among 15 main recommendations made by the committee is a call for laws that make it a crime to conceal child abuse offences, to groom a child for sexual abuse and to place a child at risk.

It has also called for the Catholic Church to be incorporated so it could be sued and for an independent scheme for victims of criminal child abuse.

Even before the tabling of the committee's report on Wednesday, Justice Peter McClellan, chair of the nationally-focused Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, said his inquiry would examine its evidence and findings.

He said the commission's terms of reference "require us to look at the civil and criminal processes relevant to the abuse of children".

For the hundreds of victims who gave evidence to the Victorian inquiry and the thousands more whose lives were damaged and destroyed, the report is what they have always wanted.

But for most it can never be enough.

Victim Mick Serch welcomed the outcome, but said the scar of his abuse will never heal.

"You can put a bandaid on it but it keeps falling off," Mr Serch said.

Anthony Foster, whose two daughters were abused by a priest, said the 12 months of gruelling submissions had been worth it.

"I think we have the basis for everything we wanted," Mr Foster said.

"The process has been challenging in some ways but I think the outcome is potentially fantastic."

Committee chair Georgie Crozier told parliament the inquiry heard graphic accounts of "horrendous" abuse suffered by many victims at the hands of the clergy.

"Children were betrayed by trusted figures in organisations of high standing and suffered unimaginable harm," she said.

"Parents of these children experienced a betrayal beyond comprehension.

"And the community was betrayed by the failure of organisations to protect children in their care."

The report is scathing of the Catholic Church's response to sexual abuse by its clergy and others in its parishes, schools and homes.

Senior church leaders had trivialised child abuse; had failed to disclose or even respond to many cases prior to the 1990s; and ensured perpetrators were not held accountable.

More recent responses to abuse by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and Salvation Army were often not truly independent, providing only generic apologies and offers of compensation without admissions of guilt, the inquiry found.

The initial response from the Catholic Church in Victoria has been heartening, if belated.

Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart described the abuse detailed in the report as "irreparable".

"It is the worst betrayal of trust in my lifetime in the Catholic Church," Archbishop Hart said.

"I fully acknowledge that leaders in the church made mistakes - these are indefensible.

"I have to accept that church leaders in the past concealed crimes and caused other children to be offended against."

The Victorian government has six months to consider the recommendations of the inquiry, but Premier Denis Napthine said it will introduce changes to the law in parliament early next year.