CATHOLIC Abuse Victim's Face Haunts Priest

9 News
February 7, 2017

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2017/02/07/03/34/australian-inquiry-won-t-change-church

An American priest sacked from his Vatican embassy job after taking an interest in child sex cases says he still remembers the "empty" face of the first victim he met.

Father Thomas Doyle, who wrote a graphic report about abuse read by Pope John Paul II in 1985, says the Catholic Church still doesn't understand the depth of spiritual damage done to victims of abuse.

He told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that his first meeting with a victim - a 10-year-old boy - changed his life.

"When I looked into his face - I still see it," Dr Doyle, who has been working with victims for more than three decades, told Tuesday's hearing in Sydney.

"It was empty."

Dr Doyle was scathing of the church's responses to abuse, saying a culture of clericalism which viewed male Church leaders as "sacred", was a "virus" that had infected the establishment.

Church leaders misunderstood human sexuality and had not historically realised a victim's life would never be the same again, he said.

"That's soul murder. Sometimes those murdered souls stay dead."

Dr Doyle was applauded numerous times during his evidence.

Royal commission data released on Monday revealed 4444 alleged child sex victims had made complaints to 93 Australian Catholic authorities between 1980 and 2015.

Dr Doyle, who consulted for victims on the Pope Francis-established Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors said a lack of pastoral care for victims was one of the "biggest holes" in the response.

He said one woman on the commission thought her job was to make the Vatican "look good" and didn't speak to some victims.

"There's something wrong with that picture," he said.

"The primary importance, the primary concern, has to be the victims of sexual abuse or any other kind of abuse that happens at the hands of clergy."

The hearing continues.