Australian victims of pedophile priests are less likely to resort to court cases than Americans, according to the Australian Catholic Church's professional standards committee.The most important aspect for victims was to have their accounts taken seriously, followed by the knowledge that the perpetrator would not be in a position to abuse others, Sister Angela Ryan, the committee's prevention officer, said today.
The Los Angeles archdiocese has announced it will pay out more than $A700 million in compensation to settle more than 500 complaints.
Sister Ryan said the Australian church did not keep a central database of figures, but the emphasis of its Towards Healing program was to help people move on.
"You can never eradicate the past, you can only help people move on in the future," Sister Ryan said.
The first step under the program was always to encourage people to report abuse to the police, and to help them do so, but many wanted it dealt with in other ways.
The national church's pastoral projects officer, Bob Dixon, said the clerical abuse scandal had horrified and damaged many faithful, loyal and motivated Catholics.
"But the National Church Life Survey shows they get over the shock quite quickly. They say, 'this shouldn't happen, but we trust our parish priest and we trust the church to do its best'," Mr Dixon said.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce