AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Andrew West for The Religion and Ethics Report
The senior Australian businesswoman appointed to supervise the Catholic Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis says she is “pessimistic” about the Church’s willingness to reform.
Elizabeth Proust, the head of the Church’s own Truth, Justice and Healing Council, fears the institution will emerge from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse only “partially cleansed and unreconstructed”.
“I fear there’s a view that once the royal commission reports, and the publicity around what will be a fairly dire report all dies down, that life will go back to what it was,” Ms Proust told The Religion and Ethics Report.
“I hope I’m wrong. I’d like to think that the possibility for real transformation of the Church exists, but it’s an institution that’s been very slow to change on a whole range of issues.”
She wants the Church to establish permanent and independent protocols to deal with future cases of abuse.
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