AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
FOR decades, allegations of sexual abuse by clergy in Australia were handled in a piecemeal way.
Churches and institutions involved seemed able to deflect criticism, and law enforcers and politicians appeared to struggle with the issues.
Victims and their advocates were told matters were being fixed ‘‘in house’’, but somehow they weren’t.
At times it seemed as if some institutions were waging a war of attrition against their accusers, hunkered behind ancient practices that they believed entitled them to hide dreadful crimes.
Some shifted paedophiles from place to place, ducking and weaving and berating from the pulpit any who dared call their bluff.
And then, suddenly, the dam broke. The defences of church administrators fell away, exposed as the shams they always were.
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