AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
December 8, 2013
Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer
As Catholics around Australia are warned to prepare themselves for shock and shame from now until Christmas, one of Sydney’s biggest congregations may be better prepared than most.
It is understood hearings starting in Sydney on Monday into the church’s controversial Towards Healing protocol for dealing with victims will explore some of the most harrowing stories yet before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
A group of parishioners at St Mary Magdalene church in Rose Bay have been meeting since the commission was announced a year ago to share what parish priest Monsignor Tony Doherty describes as their confusion, horror and disgust.
”The trust people put in priests, Catholic schools and parishes is deeply bruised. Lots of people say that their churches are empty,” said Monsignor Doherty, who estimates 700 to 800 people attend his Sunday Mass and who marked 50 years as a priest in August.
About a year ago, when the NSW government inquiry into the Catholic Church in the Hunter and the royal commission were announced, he realised he could no longer think of child sex abuse in the church as a few isolated cases. He felt ”profound shame” that something so ”absolutely heinous” could have happened.
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