AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites resercher (article posted 4 October 2013)
In the fortnight beginning 9 December 2013, Australia’s national Royal Commission (into institutional responses to child sexual abuse) will hear evidence about the establishment and operation of the Catholic Church’s so-called “Towards Healing” process. The Commission will explore how this process works in practice with evidence from a number of people who have participated in it.
For years, Broken Rites has pointed out that the Catholic Church in Australia is set up cleverly as a property trust, so that victims cannot sue the church for the damage caused to their life by the church’s child-abuse. The church prefers that victims seek compensation through its own in-house system (such as Towards Healing), rather than through civil litigation. Towards Healing gives a victim a much smaller amount than what he or she would receive through civil litigation. To receive the token amount from Towards Healing, victims must sign a settlement deed giving up their right to sue the church for the proper amount.
Since the Royal Commission began its work in early 2013, church spokesman have claimed that the Catholic Church is prepared to make a few improvements to the Towards Healing system to make it more “independent”.
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