PARIS (FRANCE)
LaCroix International
February 14, 2019
By Claire Lesegretain
This is the second in a five-part series on steps taken by Catholic bishops on the various continents. Australia, which has a 25 percent baptized Catholic population, has experienced a series of crises over the Church pedophilia scandal since the first accusations became public during the 1980s.
In 1996, after a rising number of revelations, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) published its plans in a document entitled “Towards Healing” while the Archdiocese of Melbourne developed a plan of its own entitled “The Melbourne Response.”The two protocols set out the procedures to be followed in cases of suspicion and reporting of abuse allegations involving a member of Church personnel.
They included preventive measures as well as a process of accompaniment and compensation for victims.Despite these efforts by the Church, the devastating report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which was made public in February 2017, once again shone a torchlight on the scandals in the Church.
Prepared over a period of five years and covering more than 4,000 youth institutions – both religious- and government-run, the report showed that “between 1950 and 2010, 7 percent of priests had been accused of sexual abuse of children.”
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