AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
JOANNE MCCARTHY
May 5, 2016
THE Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will hold a final public hearing into the Catholic Church in February 2017.
The commission has called for submissions until July about any factors which may have contributed to why thousands of children were sexually abused within the church, including the role of canon law and mandatory celibacy, and the processes by which priests and other religious were selected.
It is also considering factors contributing to how the church responded to allegations of abuse.
Royal Commission chief executive officer Philip Reed said previous case studies and hearings had considered Catholic institutions including the Archdioceses of Melbourne and Adelaide, the Dioceses of Ballarat, Wollongong and Rockhampton, Catholic Education offices, the Marist Brothers, the Christian Brothers, and the Sisters of Mercy. Case studies had also considered the Towards Healing process and the Melbourne Response.
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