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Redress is not compensation. It is about acknowledging the harm caused and supporting people who have experienced child sexual abuse in an institution to move forward positively in the way that is best for them.
Archbishop Fisher's Easter warning was in part responding to the findings of the royal commission and in part to some of the submissions to the Ruddock panel on religious freedom. Being on the panel, it would not be appropriate for me to comment on particular submissions at this time. But I was shocked by the Archbishop's shrill tone.
The size and complexity of the church has bedevilled the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Church reformers face the same dilemma. The church is big and slippery, with numerous opportunities to engage but equally numerous veto points and dead-ends when it comes to getting action.
In the Catholic Church clericalism is the whipping boy of choice. But what it embraces is less clear. It is a pejorative word, used by people of others but never of themselves, and is normally defined by reference to examples of it. It is worth pausing to reflect on clericalism and its significance for church and society.
When the bishops and religious decided to establish CPSL they understood that a new approach was needed. In a Church that will take many years to recover from the child sexual abuse crisis, something different had to happen. The safety and protection of children and vulnerable people in the Church is everybody's business.
It's a common refrain from survivors of clerical sexual abuse, often heard when church leaders try to explain away their failure to listen and respond to the crimes of their peers: 'They just don't get it.' Up until recently, Pope Francis has seemed to 'get it' in his response to the crisis of abuse. But recent events have raised doubts.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has concluded. What lies ahead now for the Catholic Church? Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, talks about what the process has been like, and the unease among ordinary Catholics that church leaders still don't get it.
Fatima Measham speaks with Francis Sullivan, CEO of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, to reflect on the journey since the Royal Commission was first announced in November 2012 and to consider what are the next steps for the Church.
Many claim it is inappropriate for media to report these stories. The concept of justice at law depends upon systems designed to weigh evidence, affording the parties the opportunity to tell their stories. But what if these systems are inadequate to expose the abuses of power evident in the recent disclosures?
Vincent Long's testimony was notable for its directness, honesty and the awareness it displayed of the importance of church culture. Long grew up in the Vietnamese Catholic Church and was afterwards chosen to lead the Australian Church. In his responses he focused on clericalism and its role in giving license and cover to clerical abuse.
The statistics were horrifying. Every case represented a person who claims as a child to have been abused by a person of authority in a Catholic institution. Whichever way the statistics are interpreted in comparison with other institutions, they are appalling. We need to hold the victims clearly in focus.
This royal commission has changed the public response of religious institutions, not their culture. Nor has it altered the culture at the political pointy ends of state, territory or national government. The cause of the misuse of power over children was our refusal to take a child's world view as seriously as our own adult priorities.
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