AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (United Kingdom)
Stephen Crittenden
theguardian.com, Tuesday 27 August 2013
A body set up by the Catholic church in Australia to oversee its dealings with the royal commission into child sexual abuse is not the predominantly lay-run organisation it has been represented as, according to documents obtained by Guardian Australia.
The Truth, Justice and Healing Council was established last January by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious Australia to prepare documents and legal submissions for the royal commission and review the church’s existing abuse protocols. It is chaired by retired NSW supreme court judge Barry O’Keefe, with former general secretary of the Australian Medical Association Francis Sullivan as its chief executive and media face.
Although two of its 13 members are bishops – Mark Coleridge, the archbishop of Brisbane; and William Wright, the bishop of Maitland-Newcastle – the TJH Council has been promoted from the outset as a lay-dominated organisation operating at arm’s length from the hierarchy, and its own press releases describe it as an “independent advisory group”.
In fact, the council is tightly controlled by a separate 11-member “supervisory group” made up of bishops and heads of religious orders. The existence of this second body is referred to in the TJH Council’s terms of reference, but its size and membership have never been made public.
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