AUSTRALIA
Border Mail
Melissa Cunningham
@MeljCunningham
7 Feb 2017
The Catholic Church still fails to comprehend the depth of damage caused to victims and their families as result of the widespread sexual violation of children and adults by clergy, an inquiry heard.
Doctor Thomas Doyle, a United States canon lawyer and expert in areas of sexual abuse by clergy gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on Tuesday.
The Dominican priest accused the Catholic Church of committing the “soul murder” of abuse victims, with some survivors never recovering from the trauma.
“Sometimes those murdered souls stay dead,” Dr Doyle told the inquiry.
“One of the massive holes in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to this issue still today, is a failure to completely comprehend the depth of the spiritual damage that is done to the victims, to their families, especially their parents, to their friends and to the community itself.”
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