Church Sex-Abuse Delusion Shattered
The Herald Sun
THAT child sexual abuse by clergy has been found to be considered by Church hierarchy as “a short-term embarrassment” and not a reason to question their own culture is a toxic delusion hopefully exploded by today’s parliamentary report into the handling of child sex abuse claims by institutions, titled Betrayal of Trust. It found the abuse of trust of children and parents was beyond comprehension. Committee member Andrea Coote said the committee found current Catholic leadership saw child sexual abuse as something that could be minimalized and trivialised, and that “a sliding morality has emerged in the Catholic Church”. How terrifying, how dangerous and yes, how incomprehensible. As chairwoman Georgie Crozier said tabling the Betrayal of Trust report, and as became painfully clear during the committee’s hearings, the children betrayed by trusted figures in organisations of high standing suffered unimaginable harm. “Parents experienced a betrayal beyond comprehension, and the community was betrayed by the failure of organisations to protect children in their care,” Ms Crozier told Parliament. And yet, henceforth, all we have been given is half-hearted acknowledgment that past systems of governance may have failed (enabling paedophiles to be moved from parish to parish and to keep abusing), and mere lip service paid to the pain of victims and parents whose lives were damaged to the core. There have been excuses, and carefully crafted answers, but no meaningful apology or talking of responsibility for Church attempts to cover up cases of abuse and actively hinder attempts to have offending priests charged. Belated as it is, it’s in part thanks to the tireless efforts of people such as Anthony and Chrissie Foster, whose daughters Emma and Kate were serially raped by a priest at primary school, that this inquiry happened at all. Now ambassadors for the lobby group Adults Surviving Child Abuse, they fought for more to be done to expose the systemic abuse and cover-ups. Early in 2008, Emma Foster died of a medication overdose at the age of 26. Katie became a binge drinker as a result of her abuse and was hit by a drunk driver in 1999. She was left physically and mentally disabled, requiring 24-hour care. The Fosters were in parliament to see the committee report handed down and hugged chair Georgie Crozier afterwards. The impact of the sex crimes of clergy and other people in positions of authority over children is impossible to measure; as the head of the Federal Government’s Royal Commission into institutional sex abuse, Justice Peter McClellan, said yesterday many people never tell their story and it takes others decades to come forward. The Federal investigation has attracted so many people wanting to talk about what happened to them—often for the first time—that Justice McClellan said staff had been “inundated” to the point where 100 extra personnel were needed now to meet demand. That inquiry has received more than 6000 calls from people wanting to make statements about abuse that happened to them as children at the hands of institutions. Justice McClelland said in September that stories the commissioners are hearing from victims “will shock a nation”. He said often “unbelievable violence” comes with the sexual abuse of children and even gathering this evidence has been “harrowing”. It has been reassuring to hear on radio this morning that other victims and their families celebrated as this damning document was presented, but there is still much justice to be delivered to people whose suffering was compounded by the complicity of powerful figures in their community and Church in efforts—over decades—to shut them up.
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