AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Karen Percy
The Melbourne Archbishop should not oversee the Catholic Church’s scheme to address sexual abuse within the archdiocese, a redacted report has recommended.
A 2015 report into the Melbourne Response by former Federal Court judge Donnell Ryan QC was released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse late this afternoon, at the conclusion of hearings featuring senior Catholic figures.
The report was suppressed by the Catholic Church for more than a year.
In it, Mr Ryan makes 17 recommendations, several of them suggesting those in charge of the scheme not be under the Archbishop’s power, that files and archives be held separately, and that budget and administrative matters also be separated out.
But he points out “nothing has been revealed … to suggest [anyone] … has ever acted under the direction or influence of the Archbishop or any other church official”.
The Melbourne Response was established by Cardinal George Pell in 1996, when he was Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne.
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