AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH DECEMBER 10, 2013
THE Catholic Church has admitted paying at least $43 million in hush money to victims of its paedophile priests, as the church’s barrister outraged victims yesterday by quoting from the Bible.
In some cases, victims were not even allowed to tell their husbands, wives or children about the secret settlements negotiated through the church’s controversial Towards Healing process.
The royal commission into child sex abuse was yesterday also told how a Brisbane Catholic priest, Father Frank Derriman, ran a cult-like group sexually abusing young girls and giving them all the surname Brown, borrowed from the Peanuts comic strip’s Charlie Brown.
As the church apologised for its behaviour through the commission, survivors who were abused as children in orphanages and homes, walked out of the Sydney hearing in tears when the church’s counsel, Peter Gray SC quoted from the Gospel of Mark.
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