VATICAN to Hear Aust Abuse Redress Changes

9 News
May 7, 2014

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2014/05/07/15/00/anger-at-vatican-s-abuse-solution

The Catholic Church in Australia will tell the Vatican that it is in the interests of survivors of abuse that investigations and settlement determinations be taken out of the hands of the clergy.

Francis Sullivan, the head of the Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council, also says that all assistance schemes for victims of abuse are being reviewed.

The council co-ordinates the Catholic Church's response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The comments from Mr Sullivan came after concerns were raised by abuse survivors that the Vatican was telling the United Nations that Towards Healing - the Church's Australian process for handling abuse complaints - had been effective.

SNAP Australia, a survivors' network for people abused by priests, said Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, who led the Vatican delegation appearing before the UN committee against torture, had cited the Australian process as an example of the Church "responding positively" to abuse victims.

SNAP Australia chief Nicky Davis was at the UN hearings on Monday and Tuesday and said Dr Tomasi was answering questions about the Vatican's global response to victims when he mentioned Towards Healing.

"It was offered as an example of how the Church is responding positively and seemed to imply that it would be a model scheme for other countries," Ms Davis said.

She said Australian survivors were astonished to hear the Vatican holding up the "disgraced" Towards Healing process as an example of the Catholic Church properly addressing this issue.

Ms Davis described the Church's internal program as: "trying to appear independent, where the odds are heavily stacked against survivors receiving justice".

Mr Sullivan said Towards Healing was one of the first schemes introduced by any institution to try to address child sexual abuse.

"For some it has worked well, for others it has not," he said.

But he said all assistance schemes for victims were being reviewed and "there is no doubt that significant changes will be made".

"What must be made clear is that the independent investigation of complaints and determination of appropriate settlements needs to be made away from the Church in the interests of survivors," he said.

He also said the council would be keeping the Vatican informed of any changes to the process.

Ms Davis and other representatives of SNAP, which has more than 18,000 members in 79 countries, had been in Geneva to meet with the UN committee on torture.

Ms Davis said she would be sending the committee excerpts from evidence heard at the current Australian royal commission so they can be fully informed about Towards Healing.