AUSTRALIA
ABC News
[with audio]
The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, spoke today, acknowledging that the Parliamentary Inquiry had set out inexcusable failures in the Church’s response to abuse. Father Shane Mackinlay is spokesman for the Catholic Church in Victoria and he spoke to Mark Colvin.
Transcript
MARK COLVIN: The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, spoke today as we’ve heard. He also put out a statement saying the Parliamentary Inquiry had set out “inexcusable failures” in the Church’s response to abuse.
Father Shane Mackinlay is spokesman for the Catholic Church in Victoria. I asked him if it was inexcusable, why the Church had spent so long excusing it.
SHANE MACKINLAY: The Church’s submission to this report itself documents those failures and describes them as inexcusable, as terrible failures.
Facing the Truth, our submission, sets out the way in which victims have been betrayed and the trust that was placed in the Church was betrayed by priests and religious personnel who committed these appalling crimes.
And also, by church leaders who failed to respond to that in an adequate and appropriate and timely way: believing victims when they came forward, responding to them in a way that provided genuine assistance and intervening to ensure that that abuse couldn’t happen in the future.
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