The Church Must Respond to the Royal Commission Now, or Be Left Behind

By Francis Sullivan
ABC - Religiand Ethics
July 14, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2014/07/11/4044392.htm

The window in which the Church can act is being shut by a sceptical community and a Royal Commission which will roll over the antiquated cultures that have overseen the abuse now coming to light.

Last week, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its interim report. Much of the attention so far has focused on the first volume of the 700-page plus report. It is the second volume, however, that brings together what is a truly horrifying litany of abuse and suffering. It is this volume that tells the individual stories of abuse and the treatment survivors subsequently received from the institutions in which they were abused.

The stories have been chosen as a representative group to help the community understand the accounts the Royal Commission is receiving and the experiences of survivors. Well over half of the stories involve abuse which occurred in Catholic Church institutions. The stories have been selected in the hope they will contribute to a better understanding of the profound consequences of child sexual abuse on the lives of survivors and their families

The volume also brings together some of the more prominent, and consistent, themes which have emerged from these and other stories. Many survivors reported a culture of fear in institutions, created by severe physical abuse which allowed for an environment in which sexual abuse was both possible and unlikely to be disclosed.

The stories also reveal the long-term effects of abuse - including physical and mental damage, failed relationships, limited education and career prospects. It was reported that perpetrators commonly prepared a child with the intention of sexually abusing them. They did this by building a relationship of trust with the child and their family or carer and by isolating the child.

Survivors reported they feared that they would not be believed or would be seen as weak for letting the abuse happen. They worried that disclosure would hurt and distress others.

If it is not clear to the leaders of the Catholic Church about the extent of the failure of the way in which we have dealt with survivors of abuse before the release of the interim report, there should be no question now. What is also clear from this report, and from Commissioner Peter McClellan's speech to CLAN's annual meeting over the weekend, is that institutions such as the Catholic Church should not be waiting for the Commission to make its final report before putting in place reforms.

The facts are we cannot and should not wait for the completion of the Royal Commission to restructure our institutions to ensure children are better protected. The Commission's Interim Report signals this expectation and encourages governments and institutions to improve themselves as the failures are revealed, rather than wait for future recommendations.

It is also important that Attorneys General establish working parties to start addressing issues like a national approach to working with children checks and a national compensation scheme. Doing this work now will indicate that the Government is taking this issue very seriously and recommendations are not left on the shelf.

In addition to this the Catholic Church must make its own changes and reforms. The Truth, Justice and Healing Council has made many recommendations to the Church leadership, which have been fully endorsed. This is good. But these recommendations generally relate to issues that range across all institutions, not just the Church - recommendations around working with children checks, child safe institutions and preventing the sexual abuse of children in out of home care. These are issues about which we are saying to the Commission, and the broader community, "change the way things happen across all institutions and we will come along."

This is not enough. These are not the truly hard questions or issues for the Church. These are not the issues that we have to face on our own, that relate solely to the way the Catholic Church does things, that relate to how we behave as an organization, built on Gospel values, with compassion and forgiveness at its core. We must understand and answer the questions about our own culture - past and present:

• To what extent have cultural issues played a part in allowing abuse to occur?
• Why does it seem that many church institutions over many decades turned a blind eye, either instinctively or deliberately, to the abuse happening within their walls?
• What roll has a culture fed by clericalism, blind obedience and a closed, water-tight environment, played in the prevalence of abuse within some religious orders?
• What reforms need to be made to the way in which young men are selected for entry into the priesthood or orders? What about their training and ongoing development, including a grounding in psycho-sexual development?
• Where is the professional development of priests and others? Where is the ongoing assessment and accreditation? Where is the oversight to ensure they are carrying out their duties in accordance with professional practices and policies?
• Where is the assessment and response to the assertion that the clerical, if you like, corporate culture of the Church was for so many years about protecting the reputation of the institution and its assets - protecting fellow priests and religious from exposure and embarrassment - rather than protecting children?

At a minimum, the Church leadership needs to move towards establishing a truly independent body, led by an independent and lay executive that would oversee, audit and publically report on every diocese and congregation's adherence to strict policies and protocols around child protection and dealing with child sexual abuse issues. A body that, as far as possible, can independently determine compensation in line with accepted current levels. This would be a body that would be rolled into any Commission recommendations regarding a national, independent approach across all institutions, but would fill the gap between now and whenever that scheme might be established.

Secondly, we must ask whether we are truly prepared to make the significant changes to the way we approach the Courts when a victim seeks legal redress for abuse. Are we to hang on to technical legal defences - which, of course, we are legally entitled to do - or do we take an approach which will enable victims to immediately address the issue of appropriate redress? Such defences might be legal, but are they moral?

There is agreement at senior levels within the Church leadership that every Church body must offer up an entity that can be sued and that entity must be backed by insurance or assets. But there are still reports that some legal representatives are threatening survivors with such technical defences. This is no longer appropriate and it is imperative that congregational and church leaders take control of civil proceeding and ensure their legal teams understand these "technical" defences are no longer appropriate.

I know many people within the Church feel frustrated with the response from many Church officials, who say that we should wait to see what the Royal Commission recommends. This is not the view of the Royal Commission and it should not be the view of Church leadership. We must respond to these issues now. We can't sit on our hands and tinker at the edges.

Time is running short and the window in which we can act is being pushed shut by a sceptical community and a Royal Commission which will roll over the top of antiquated cultures within institutions that have overseen the abuse that is now coming to light.