Victims are still not front and centre of the Catholic Church’s response to widespread child sexual abuse, a victims’ advocate says.
The leaders of the Catholic Church in Australia have to be held to account when they front the child sex abuse royal commission next week, In Good Faith Foundation chief executive Helen Last says.
Victims have had enough of apologies, she said.
Australia’s Catholic Church has paid A$276 million ($213 million) in compensation to thousands of child abuse victims since 1980, a government inquiry heard on Thursday — the first time the total compensation paid by the church’s schools, orphanages and residences has been revealed.
A report at a royal commission into institutional abuse said 3,066 victims had received some form of compensation from a Catholic body in the 35 years to 2015.
Cash payments of A$258.8 million amounted to an average A$91,000 per person. Some compensation was in non-cash payments.
The country’s Catholic Church has paid more than quarter of a billion Australian dollars to child sexual abuse victims. An inquiry concluded that, while thousands of claims were made, many victims had not come forward.
Australien Prozess gegen Kindermissbrauch durch die katholische Kirche in Sydney (Reuters)
An average of 91,000 dollars each was paid to thousands of victims who came forward with claims to the church, an inquiry was told on Thursday.
Melbourne’s Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart wants governments to back a redress scheme providing a level playing field for child sex abuse victims.
Archbishop Hart, victims’ advocates and the states want specific details about how the federal government’s planned Commonwealth redress scheme for survivors of institutional child sexual abuse will work, including how complaints will be assessed.
He has called on governments to support a national scheme, amid doubts that all states, territories, churches and charities will take part in the opt-in scheme and provide their share of restitution.
Compensation payments to people sexually abused as children by Catholic clergy in the Melbourne archdiocese are expected to surpass $31 million after the church doubled the maximum available payout.
The compensation cap under the church’s Melbourne Response scheme will rise from $75,000 to $150,000, putting it in line with the maximum payment under the federal government’s planned commonwealth redress scheme.
Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart has been accused of exacerbating the suffering of clerical abuse victims by ignoring an independent report on the archdiocese’s compensation scheme that he received a year ago.
Victims who want their compensation claims reviewed have been forced to wait while the Archdiocese of Melbourne continues to delay the release of the report, fuelling claims of stalling and obfuscation by the church.
We believe this is the first memorial of its kind in Australia, recognising survivors of sexual and other abuses by Jesuit clergy and lay staff from Xavier College and Burke Hall. A former student and survivor of abuses, Richard Jabara,is the catalyst for this memorial through his justice processes. It comes from a restorative commitment […]
Compensation payments to people sexually abused as children by clergy could be increased to more than $100,000 under the Catholic Church’s much-criticised Melbourne Response scheme, a victims’ advocate says.
That is one message penned by a survivor of institutional child sexual abuse and sent to the Royal Commission. All survivors who share their story with the Commission in a private session or written account are invited to send in a Message to Australia.
Lateline’s exclusive report as a former Catholic Church co-ordinator reveals former Melbourne Archbishop George Pell prevented her from helping victims of abuse in Doveton, a parish devastated by a notorious paedophile priest.
