An inquiry into how the Catholic Church in Australia dealt with victims of child sex abuse has heard how a flawed process re-traumatised some victims. Twelve years after being silenced by the Catholic Church, Joan Isaacs can now tell the world about the sexual and emotional abuse inflicted upon her as a schoolgirl. Ms Isaacs Read more
Posts Tagged ‘Australia’
Church hierarchy trivialised sex abuse as ‘short-term embarrassment’
Friday, November 15th, 2013
Leaders of the Australian Catholic Church have been accused of trivialising sex abuse as a “short-term embarrassment. The accusation comes in the Victorian state government’s report on child sex abuse. Launching the report in the Victoria State Parliament, inquiry chairwoman, Georgie Crozier spoke of “a betrayal beyond comprehension” and of children suffering “unimaginable harm”. The Read more
Tainted leaders must go before Church’s trust restored
Tuesday, October 29th, 2013
As more than 100 new complaints of sexual abuse by Victorian clergy flood in, a leading lawyer warns the Catholic Church in Australia will not win back public trust and confidence until its current “tainted” leaders have gone. The baton needs to be passed on to another generation, one untainted by what has gone on, Read more
Christ and a growing rural addiction
Friday, October 25th, 2013
Pastoral Letter Most Rev Gerard J Holohan Bishop of Bunbury 29th September 2013 The Rural Financial Counselling Service reported recently that the number of rural people within Western Australia succumbing to internet pornography addiction, drug use and depression, is growing. Research shows internet pornography addiction to be a rapidly growing problem across Australia and overseas. Read more
Immigration control will be this generation’s apartheid
Friday, October 25th, 2013
The recent drowning of hundreds of illegal migrants off the coast of the Italian island of Lampedusa has caused a stir, as spectacles tend to. But, really, this is no more than a freak occurrence. Like mass shootings in America or child abductions by strangers, it is a statistically insignificant event attached to an emotive story. Freak Read more
Jesuit influence overplayed
Tuesday, October 22nd, 2013
It has been a big year for the Jesuit Order around the world with the election of one of their own, Jorge Bergoglio from Argentina, as Pope Francis. It has also been a big year for the Jesuits in Australian politics, culminating in the election of Jesuit-educated Bill Shorten as leader of the opposition Labor Read more
Aust. Church opts for independent monitor of sex abuse cases
Friday, October 4th, 2013
The Catholic Church in Australia has said it will allow an independent board to monitor how it handles clerical sex abuse and publicly report on its compliance. This step is part of a reform agenda described as potentially “the most significant overhaul of the Church’s approach to clerical sexual abuse in its more than 200-year Read more
The obedience of the faith: the making of George Pell
Tuesday, October 1st, 2013
The presbytery of St. Alipius is a redbrick gothic bungalow built when gold money was still washing through Ballarat. It sits in a Catholic compound of brick and granite schools and convents where the road from Melbourne reaches town. White crosses stand on the gables of the house as if to ward off evil from Read more
The Tony Abbott I know
Tuesday, September 10th, 2013
As a public personality, our new prime minister is an involuntary paradox. On the one hand, Tony Abbott is one of the most discussed people in Australia. On the other, much of the discussion is so ill-informed that it conceals, rather than illuminates. Yet the reality is that Abbott almost certainly is one of the Read more
Report says ‘independent’ church body for abuse inquiry controlled by bishops
Friday, August 30th, 2013
A report by the Guardian said a body set up by the Catholic church in Australia to oversee its dealings with the royal commission into child sexual abuse is not the predominantly lay-run organisation it has been represented as. The report noted that the Truth, Justice and Healing Council was established last January by the Read more