AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with audio]
The Archbishop of Brisbane says Catholic clergy were like rabbits in the headlights in dealing sexual abuse allegations in the 1990s. The national inquiry is examining the church’s Towards Healing protocols set up in the 1990s to handle sexual abuse complaints and how the redress scheme worked in a handful of cases in Queensland and New South Wales.
Transcript
MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission has been told that Catholic clergy were like rabbits in the headlights when dealing with a tsunami of sexual abuse claims in the 1990s.
The national inquiry is examining the Towards Healing protocols, which the Church set up in the 1990s to handle sexual abuse complaints, and how the redress scheme worked in a handful of cases in Queensland and New South Wales.
The Archbishop of Brisbane has described the Towards Healing process as messy and inconsistent and said there was spectacular bungling in the case of one victim in Brisbane.
Emily Bourke reports.
EMILY BOURKE: Seventeen years after Towards Healing was introduced, the Catholic Church is being tested on how well its own scheme delivers redress to victims of sexual abuse.
The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, told the Royal Commission that Towards Healing is a work in progress
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.