AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 6 December 2013)
Australia’s national Royal Commission on child-abuse is holding two weeks of public hearings (in Sydney, beginning on 9 December 2013) to investigate how the Catholic Church’s “Towards Healing” system has handled (or mis-handled) the church’s sex-abuse victims. The December hearings will focus on the experiences of several victims who came through that system.
“Towards Healing” is the church’s own damage-control system (devised by the church’s lawyers and public relations consultants), under which the church is allowed to “investigate” itself.
“Towards Healing” is financed by the church’s in-house insurance company, Catholic Church Insurances Limited. Many victims have contacted the Royal Commission, complaining that the purpose of “Towards Healing” is primarily to help the church (and to protect its assets), rather than to help the victims. These victims say that, after going through “Towards Healing”, they feel re-victimised.
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