AUSTRALIA
ABC News
The Royal Commission into Child Abuse has begun its final public inquiry of the year, with the spotlight on the Catholic Church’s controversial Towards Healing program. Emotions are already running high, with some people in the public gallery in Sydney leaving the inquiry in tears, as the lawyer for the church quoted from the Bible in his opening remarks. The Towards Healing process was set up by the church in 1996 to handle complaints about sexual abuse by priests.
Transcript
ELEANOR HALL: The Royal Commission into Child Abuse has begun its final public inquiry of the year, this one putting the spotlight on Catholic Church. And emotions are already running high: some people in the public gallery in Sydney left the inquiry in tears as the lawyer for the Church quoted from the Bible.
The focus of this inquiry is the controversial Towards Healing process which was set up by the Catholic Church in 1996 to handle complaints about sexual abuse by priests.
The World Today’s Emily Bourke is at the hearings in Sydney and joins us now. Emily, so clearly it’s an emotional hearing already. Can you outline of the scope of this inquiry?
EMILY BOURKE: Eleanor, this is the first chapter of the Royal Commission’s examination of Towards Healing – the process, the redress, the apologies and the outcomes in four individual cases. It’s worth noting that a significantly greater number of people are expected to give evidence from around the country throughout the life of the Royal Commission.
There’s no published data on Towards Healing and so the Royal Commission requested details from the Church, but because of inconsistent and inaccurate databases there’s still no complete data.
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.