AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Dec. 9, 2013
AT first there were howls of anger.
Barrister Peter Gray, SC, for the Catholic Church had barely started quoting from the Gospel of Mark – “Let the little children come to me” – when the public gallery at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse erupted.
“You have got to be kidding,” was clearly heard. “I can’t believe they’re quoting the Bible,” cried another. People left the room.
And then there was the sound of sobbing. One woman’s cries of pain were heard from an outer room as Mr Gray read the Church’s opening statement.
On behalf of the Church he acknowledged it had betrayed the trust of children and their parents. He acknowledged it had “sometimes covered up” and protected “wrongdoers”. He acknowledged victims were disbelieved and “treated coldly”.
In the public gallery were the people who had fought the Church for years to admit those wrongs.
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