Catholic church proposes new compensation scheme for sexual abuse victims

By Kate Stowell
Yahoo! News
August 13, 2014

https://sg.news.yahoo.com/catholic-church-proposes-compensation-scheme-035024005.html

The leadership of the Catholic Church has formally proposed a major shake-up of its compensation scheme for survivors of clergy child sexual abuse.

In a written submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, the church said it wanted the Government to set up a national scheme to determine claims and compensation.

The scheme would be independently run, but would be funded by institutions where abuse occurred.

Abuse survivors who had already received money under the Towards Healing and Melbourne Response programs would be allow to apply.

Francis Sullivan from the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council told AM the church did not want to wait for the Royal Commission's findings.

"My anticipation is that it will not be taking years. I would hope that we're hearing something from the Royal Commission through the course of next year," he said.

"Attorney-Generals in states and territories need to begin some work now - not in five years' time, but now - on what can be statutory compensation schemes so that when the Royal Commission comes forward with its recommendations we can get going."

Under the church's plan there would be no time limit for bringing a claim, but a person who accepted money would sign away their right to further civil litigation.

Mr Sullivan said he thinks the church's proposed scheme would be more attractive.

"If you're going to go down the pathway of a national compensation redress scheme, it's quicker, it's less expensive, it's certainly not as adversarial. The burden of proof is much, much lower and you get money quickly," he said.

"If you want to go down the pathway of litigation - expensive, adversarial, [it's] not very easy to succeed in.

"One versus the other - once a person makes the choice then they forego the other."

Another feature of the church's plan is that any payments made under the national scheme would be capped.

"The realities we're facing is that if governments are going to be involved with this, governments don't participate in uncapped schemes," Mr Sullivan said.

"But as far as we are concerned, there are two components.

"There will be a financial component which will meet a ceiling, but the ongoing material and pastoral support from institutions like the church will be ongoing in a sense that's not capped".

Anthony Foster is a long-time campaigner for justice for his daughters who were abused by paedophile priest Kevin O'Donnell.

"It absolutely stuns me that we have this incredible case of hypocrisy again, of swinging from one view to another," he told 774 ABC Melbourne.

"We've been trying to get the Melbourne Response changed for 18 years now so that it would have no caps.

"It is very clear in the past that the Catholic Church has said that there should be an uncapped system.

"Now, they've changed and they've gone back to trying to protect their money."

Mr Foster was angry that Mr Sullivan touted the advantages of a capped scheme because it is less adversarial.

"[Francis Sullivan] was effectively saying 'take a small amount because otherwise its going to be a battle'," he said.

"What they should be doing is making the church available for litigation so that we have a viable system where victims can receive true compensation."