AUSTRALIA
CathNews
Mr Sullivan said this week’s meeting at the Vietnamese Catholic Community Centre in Westminster, to discuss the upcoming Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, was overwhelmingly positive. Delegates responded with determination and compassion and all involved understand the importance of the Commission to victims and to the Church.
‘For the Church’s part, the first step to coming to terms with the devastation and the enormity of child sexual abuse is to have an open and honest discussion. The silence that accompanies sexual abuse in the broader community is too often the same as the silence that goes on within institutions including the Catholic Church,’ Mr Sullivan said.
The ABC reports that a psychologist who advised the Catholic Church committee that deals with sexual abuse says the church’s insurance company dictated how victims should be treated under the Towards Healing protocol.
Dr Robert Grant is a US-based psychologist who specialises in abuse and trauma, has worked with the Catholic Church on sexual abuse issues in seven countries, and has written a number of books on clerical abuse.
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