AUSTRALIA
7 News
BY ANNETTE BLACKWELL
December 18, 2013
The Catholic Church’s response to sex abuse was “Towards Hurting” rather than “Towards Healing” one of the victims has told an inquiry.
The man said he had no faith left after being abused by three Marist Brothers at school and then participating in the church’s mediation process Towards Healing, which he called a “sham.”
He felt this way when he learned that the order of brothers withheld the fact that an independent mediator in his case actually worked for the Catholic Church.
The 49-year-old identified as DK, who was abused while a boarder at St Augustine’s Marist College in Cairns from 1976-81, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse of his desire to forgive, and to educate his children in the Catholic system.
But this had changed because of the process to which he was subjected.
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