AUSTRALIA
SBS
Source AAP 15 AUG 2014
When the Australian Catholic church was hit with a tidal wave of sexual abuse allegations in the 1990s, its bishops – barring George Pell – were like rabbits caught in the headlights.
Their reaction was described by the Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, when he appeared before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Archbishop Coleridge was explaining why an internal church process – Towards Healing – set up to provide support for abuse survivors, sometimes failed badly.
In those days, the bishops just didn’t know what to do, said Archbishop Coleridge, so when lawyers and insurance brokers showed the way, the pastors were relieved.
But Cardinal Pell, who went on to become the Vatican’s supreme bean counter and the third most powerful clergyman in its bureaucracy, was definitely not among the rabbits.
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