AUSTRALIA
Sky News
It would be a miracle if it worked – a pastoral-cum-compensation scheme run by, for want of a better word, the accused.
The process certainly isn’t working as intended, which is one reason the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing scheme for abuse victims will be under the microscope at a national inquiry for two weeks starting on Monday.
The introduction of Towards Healing in 1996 was a watershed moment in the Catholic Church’s approach to dealing with child sexual abuse within the institution.
In a frank submission to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the church admits that for a decade it struggled to frame a response to the emerging revelations.
Its 207-page assessment and defence of Towards Healing can be found on the royal commission’s webpage.
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