AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with audio]
Royal Commission will spend the next two weeks examining the Catholic Church’s Towards Healing protocols and how they’ve worked. The public examination over the next two weeks will look at the cases of four Queensland residents who were abused by Catholic clergy in Brisbane, Lismore and two Marist schools in Queensland. Catholic Church’s truth justice and healing council has resolved to reform the process. The Royal Commission’s public inquiry of Towards Healing will continue throughout the life of the inquiry.
Transcript
TONY EASTLEY: It’s been one of the Catholic Church’s more controversial responses to the scourge of child sexual abuse, and now it’s about to undergo a forensic examination by the Royal Commission.
For the next fortnight the Royal Commission will publicly examine how four abuse victims were treated by the Catholic Church when they lodged a complaint through the church’s Towards Healing process.
Sexual abuse victims and their lawyers maintain it’s a process that re-traumatises survivors and should be scrapped altogether.
Here’s Emily Bourke.
EMILY BOURKE: The Royal Commission says around 40 per cent of the calls, emails and statements it’s received are about the Catholic Church.
And over the next two weeks, the inquiry will publicly hear from four people who were abused by Catholic priests in Brisbane and Lismore and by Marist Brothers in two Queensland schools.
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