AUSTRALIA
The Australian
SARAH ELKS THE AUSTRALIAN FEBRUARY 25, 2014
THE former head of a Catholic body handling child abuse allegations has criticised the church’s flagship Towards Healing protocol.
Retired Toowoomba bishop Bill Morris yesterday told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that a new national independent body should be established to deal with all institutional abuse allegations and subsequent out-of-court financial settlements.
“Where (Towards Healing) fell down was where the communication wasn’t there and (the victims) were left hanging, in a vacuum,” Bishop Morris said. “That was my experience.”
Bishop Morris was at the helm of the Toowoomba Catholic diocese when pedophile teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes molested and raped 13 girls in his classroom in 2007 and 2008. Bishop Morris sacked a school principal and two Catholic Education officials when it was revealed they failed to report sexual assault allegations against Byrnes to police in September 2007.
Until he was forced into early retirement by the Vatican in 2011, Bishop Morris was also the co-chairman of the National Committee for Professional Standards, which founded Towards Healing as the Catholic Church’s pastoral response to child abuse within its ranks.
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