AUSTRALIA
The Conversation
Kathleen McPhillips
Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Newcastle
The final hearing of the Catholic Church at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse opened on February 6.
The three-week hearing is investigating the church’s response to the crisis of child sexual abuse by clerics over a 60-year period, and particularly the church’s plans for child protection protocols and institutional change. The hearing (Case Study 50) is streamed live from the commission’s website. Members of the public are welcome to attend at any time.
The structure of the hearing is comprised of panels of experts who will report on the main issues raised throughout the 15 public hearings that the Catholic Church has been the subject of over the past four years. The panels are divided into topics that reflect the major concerns the commission has identified with church culture and practice. These include church governance, culture, clericalism, discipline and secrecy, the practice of confession, formation programs for clerics, Catholic education, child safety and risk management, complaint handling, professional standards, professional support and responses from the church leadership.
It is a long hearing, reflecting that the Catholic Church is the worst offender before the royal commission. It is also possibly the most complex in terms of managing change.
Prior to the hearing, a number of church leaders, including Archbishop Mark Coleridge from Brisbane and Archbishop Anthony Fisher from Sydney, warned Catholic communities that the evidence and data emerging from the hearing would be “grim”.
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