AUSTRALIA
The Age
December 6, 2015
Chris Vedelago, Cameron Houston
The Catholic Church avoided paying up to $62 million in compensation to sexual abuse victims by creating the controversial Melbourne Response program, which capped payments at $50,000 for each victim.
Internal documents also show church leaders ordered written records about sex abuse be “kept to a minimum” to avoid losing lawsuits, and hired one of the country’s best spin doctors in a bid to prepare for the scandal in the early 1990s.
The revelations come after a week of explosive hearings at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse where former Melbourne archdiocese vicar-general Bishop Peter Connors referred to the church’s knowledge about paedophile priests preying on parishioners as “time bombs ticking away”.
The testimony and records tendered to the royal commission also detail the church’s preoccupation with protecting its reputation and financial position ahead of a flood of sexual abuse compensation claims, lawsuits and counselling expenses.
In 1996, concerns about managing the looming crisis led to the creation of the Melbourne Response program, which capped compensation payments at $50,000, and later, $75,000.
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