AUSTRALIA
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The Catholic Church’s grandiosely-named Truth, Justice and Healing Council (otherwise known as the PR Unit set up by the church to deal with the fall-out from the Royal Commission) has made a submission on the subject of the fourth hearing of the Commission, concerning the “Towards Healing” process.
[Correction: A factual error in the last posting has been pointed out to me. I referred to the “Towards Healing” and “Melbourne Response” as being both the brain-child of Cardinal George Pell. Pell was responsible for the “Melbourne Response”, allegedly following intense pressure from the then Victorian State Premier, Jeff Kennett. The “Towards Healing” program came from the peak Bishops’ body, later. To use my own terminology, I made an “inadvertent misrepresentation” – that is, I stuffed up on my research. All I can do is to apologize for the error and promise to lift my game in the future.]
The above-mentioned Council claims to speak for all sectors of the Catholic Church, in matters relating to the Royal Commission. It says that almost all sectors now use the “Towards Healing” process to deal with allegations of abuse in the church. The Jesuits held out until 2004 before joining the system. The Melbourne Archdiocese, formerly headed by George Pell and now headed by Denis Hart (see previous posting), is now the only one holding out. It still prefers to use its original “Melbourne Response” process.
The “Melbourne Response” process has been severely criticized at the recent Victorian State Parliamentary enquiry, and elsewhere. It seems that the Royal Commission, which has access to all of the data from the Victorian enquiry, will now concentrate on the “Towards Healing” process at its hearings beginning in Sydney on 9th December. The two processes are fairly similar, but there are very real differences which cannot be detailed here, at this stage. A future posting will hopefully be able to achieve this difficult task of showing the differences, and their implications.
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