2007-2008 Echo Issue Outline ... to return to the page you "clicked" from, simply close this window



Related issue outlines:
1999: Sexual misconduct and the clergy: was the case of George Browning, the Anglican bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, handled appropriately?
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2008/20: Should Australia develop a federal charter of rights?

2008/20: Does the Catholic Church in Australia offer sufficient support to those who claim to have been abused by clergy?

What they said...

'I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering'
Pope Benedict XVI

'They are only words - the same thing we've been hearing for 13 years. It is simply an apology, there is nothing practical there which is what we were looking for'
Anthony Foster, the father of two schoolgirls who were raped by a priest

The issue at a glance
On Saturday July 19, 2008, Pope Benedict XVI issued an apology to all who have been sexually abused by Catholic clergy. The Pope went on to ask the Australian bishops to work on combating the evil of sexual abuse, give victims compassion and care and to create a safer environment for young people.
Pope Benedict was in Australia as part of World Youth Day (WYD) 2008, being staged in Sydney between August 15 and 20. Prior to Pope Benedict's arrival in Australia a previous sex abuse case supposedly mishandled by the Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell attracted significant media attention.
Bishop Anthony Fisher, who was WYD coordinator, told journalists that this controversy was detracting from the massive Catholic youth festival in Sydney. 'I think most of Australia was enjoying, delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people ... rather than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds,' Bishop Fisher said.
Bishop Fisher's remarks were generally considered inappropriate and fueled criticism of the Catholic Church's general handling of cases of sexual abuse by clergy.
In the wake of the Pope's apology many within the Catholic Church have stressed the appropriateness the Church's response to the challenge of sexual abuse by clergy. Others, however, do not consider the apology sufficient.

Background
The following is a summary of Catholic clergy in Australia who have confessed to or been found guilty of sexual abuse. (The source of this data in the Wikipedia entry 'Roman Catholic sex abuse cases by country'. This entry can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_sex_abuse_cases_by_country

Archdiocese of Sydney
Ross Murrin - a Catholic brother pleads guilty in 2007 to sexually abusing eight male students in 1974.

Archdiocese of Melbourne
Michael Charles Glennon - sentenced to at least 15 years in jail for sexually abusing four Aboriginal boys between 1984 and 1991.
Wilfred James Baker - self-confessed sexually abusive priest sentenced to four years in prison (parole after 2 years) for 16 counts of indecent assault and one of gross indecency, involving eight boys, aged 10 to 13, over a 20-year period between 1960 and 1979. Baker fondled the boys sexually in bed during weekend trips and rubbed himself against them.
David Daniel - sentenced to six years jail, with parole after 4.5 years, for molesting four boys, a girl and an adult male.
Rex Elmer - self-confessed child sexual abuser sentenced in 1998 to five years jail (with parole after 3 years 4 months) for molesting 12 boys at St Vincent's orphanage in South Melbourne.

Archdiocese of Brisbane
Francis Edward Derriman - sentenced in 1998 to 12 months jail (suspended after serving four months) after being found guilty of indecently dealing with a teenage girl.

Archdiocese of Perth
Gerard William Dick - self-confessed sexually abusive priest sentenced to three and a half years jail in 1995 for ten incidents of indecently dealing with boys aged eight to ten at a Christian Brothers orphanage in Western Australia.

Archdiocese of Townsville
Neville Joseph Creen - molested young girls while he served as a priest at Mount Isa, north-west Queensland (in the Townsville diocese), from 1973 to 1981. In Brisbane District Court on 12 September 2003, Creen (aged 63) was sentenced to three-and-half years' jail (suspended after 14 months) after admitting to 34 indecent dealing charges involving 18 girls under the age of 13. One girl was aged just five when Creen abused her at a youth camp and later at the home of her grandparents.

Archdiocese of Ballarat
Gerry Francis Ridsdale - has pleaded guilty to indecently assaulting a total of 40 children (comprising 39 boys and one girl). He is serving a jail sentence of 19 years (minimum), with parole possible in the year 2013.

Archdiocese of Bunbury
Adrian Richard Van Klooster - plead guilty to four counts of indecently dealing with children under the age of 13, and was found with child pornography on his computer under the heading, 'Parish Business'

Archdiocese of Wagga Wagga
Vincent Kiss - was sentenced to ten and a half years in jail (eligible for parole after seven years) for sex crimes against four teenage boys. He pleaded guilty to three charges of buggery and ten of indecent assault.

Marist Fathers of Tasmania
Gregory Ferguson - was sentenced on 15 May 2007 to two years jail (eligible for parole after 12 months), for offences in 1971 against two boys aged 13 at Marist College, Burnie, Tasmania. On 13 December 2007, he was sentenced to an additional three years' jail for offences against a third boy, making a total of five years' jail.

Internet information
The Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance is a group that produces overviews of ethical and religious issues and other issues that arise within the popular media. The have developed an overview titled, 'Child and youth sexual abuse by clergy'. It considers the extent of such abuse, what may caue it and what actions the different chuches have taj=ken to address it. The full text of this overview can be found at http://www.religioustolerance.org/clergy_sex6.htm

On June 25, 2008, Archbishop Mark Coleridge announced that the Catholic Church in Australia was doing all it could to prevent the abuse of young people by clergy. The bishop's statements were reported by the ABC News. The full text of this news report can be found at http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=7842

The full text of Pope Benedict XVI's apology made to sex abuse victims in Australia on July 19, 2008, can be found at http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L18686574.htm

On July 25, 2008, Online Opinion published an article by Professor Frank Brennan, Adjunct fellow in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the ANU, professor of law in the Institute of Legal Studies at the Australian Catholic University, and professor of human rights and social justice at the University of Notre Dame.
The opinion piece is titled, 'Church abuse protocol is no joke' and gives Professor Brennan's view that the protocol, Towards Healing, established by the Catholic Church for dealing with accusations of abuse against clergy is appropriate.
The full text of the article can be found at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=7677

On April 15, 2003, Online Opinion published an article by John Massam, a campaigner for the Just World Campaign. The article is titled, 'When will the Church stop forgiving child abuse among the Clergy?' It suggests that the Catholic and Anglican churches in both Australia and the United States have been too slow to act against clergy suspected of commiting sexual abuse. The full text of the article can be found at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=286&page=2

Broken Rites is a support group established to assist those who are the victims of sexual abuse from Catholic clergy. The group's Internet page can be found at http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/contact.html

Arguments indicating that the Catholic Church does offer sufficient support
1. The Church has protocols in place that allows it to take action where sexual assault or misconduct has been proved
In November 1988, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference established a 'Special Issues Committee' including people with relevant experience in dealing with child sexual abuse to consider the implications of allegations of criminal behaviour, especially relating to children, made against members of the clergy.
A draft of the 'Protocol' for dealing with allegations of criminal behaviour was circulated to the bishops and later to diocesan priests by early 1992.
In January 1993, the Australian Bishops Conference issued the 'Pastoral Statement on Child Protection and Child Sexual Abuse'. The Statement acknowledged that some clergy had been offenders and that the Church may not have treated these incidents as seriously as they deserved.
A statement of principles for dealing with sexual abuse was released by the Church in April 1994.
In December 1996, the Catholic Church released a new protocol 'Toward Healing' which outlined the basic principles for the Church's response to complaints of sexual abuse and the procedures for dealing with such complaints.
After further consultation, 'Toward Healing' was declared operational on 31 March 1997. These guidelines were developed by the National Committee for Professional Standards, a Committee established jointly by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes.
There are numerous instances of churches and charitable organisations providing settlements as a result of the commencement of legal action by victims and as a result of internal processes such as the Toward Healing initiative.
For example, the Christian Brothers have made an out of court settlement with former residents of the St Vincent's Orphanage in South Melbourne. The Sisters of Mercy have agreed to legal settlements with children who had been in their care. The Salesians have made ex gratia payments of $1,500 to some of those who had been in their care. In 2000, after mediation, Barnardos settled with the victims of abuse which occurred in one of its homes in the 1950s.

2. The 'Towards Healing' protocols offer significant support to those who claim to have been abused
In December 1996, the Catholic Church in Australia released a blueprint for the handling of sexual assault allegations within the church developed by the National Committee for Professional Standards, a committee established jointly by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and the Australian Conference of Leaders of Religious Institutes. The document, Towards Healing: Principles and procedures in responding to complaints of sexual abuse against personnel of the Catholic church in Australia, was revised in 2000, as the original document procedures were not fully consistent with Canon Law. The review was undertaken by Professor Patrick Parkinson, pro-Dean of the Faculty of Law at Sydney University and author of the book, Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches.
Towards Healing provides a comprehensive outline of the processes and structures that the Catholic church has established to respond to any allegations of sexual assault.
The protocols under Towards Healing are a positive step towards public acknowledgement that sexual assault is a criminal offence that needs to be dealt with by the police and of the duty of care and protection of sexual assault survivors and alleged victims.

3. Pope Benedict's apology was a significant gesture
In Sydney's St. Mary's Cathedral, Pope Benedict XVI made a historic full apology for child sex abuse by priests and clergymen in Australia, on July 19, 2008.
Before a 3,400 congregation, the Pope called for compensation and demanded punishment for those guilty of the 'evil'. The Pope stated, 'Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering.'
The Pope added, 'Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice. These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. I ask all of you to support and assist your bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people.' On the 21st of July before flying out of Australia Pope Benedict met with a group of four victims of sexual abuse. He met them at St. Mary's Cathedral in Sydney, listened to their stories and celebrated mass with them.
The New South Wales Premier Morris Iemma hoped 'it will be a sign of righting the wrongs of the past and of a better future and better treatment by the church of the victims and their families.' The victim's rights advocacy group Broken Rites welcomed the Pope's apology.

4. The media and other sources have exaggerated the extent of abuse by clergy
It has been claimed that the incidence of abuse committed by Catholic clergy is no greater, if as great, as that committed by clergy in other denominations, or indeed, than the incidence of the crime as committed within the general community. Further, it has been suggested that popular beliefs regarding the extent to which Catholic clergy commit acts of sexual abuse are fostered by a sensation-seeking media.
Philip Jenkins, a Professor of History and Religious Studies at Penn State University, published 'Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis' in 1996. In it, he calculated that approximately 0.2 percent of Catholic priests are child molesters.
His 2002 article, 'The myth of the 'pedophile priest' expresses Jenkins' views. The Professor states, 'My research of cases over the past 20 years indicates no evidence whatever that Catholic or other celibate clergy are any more likely to be involved in misconduct or abuse than clergy of any other denomination-or indeed, than non clergy. However determined news media may be to see this affair as a crisis of celibacy, the charge is just unsupported.'
Philip Jensen explained his views further in an article published online as part of Toowoomba Press Releases. Here Jensen states, 'Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, commentators often employed the inaccurate term "pedophile priest". "Priest" made the problem look like the preserve of Catholics, and presumably the direct consequence of celibacy, though the misbehavior was distributed across the ecclesiastical spectrum. And while "pedophiles" are men who molest prepubescent children, the vast majority of sexually erring priests were in liaisons with teenagers or young adults. While their acts were sinful and often illegal, such behavior does not typically exhibit the more extreme predatory and compulsive character of pedophilia.
As for the numbers cited in these years, most derive from the kind of urban legend that transforms a vague estimate of something into a firm statistic for something completely different. 'Six percent' apparently mutated from a working guess for the number of Catholic clergy with pedophile inclinations, not practice. (Similar estimates have been proposed for non celibate Protestant clergy.) The most solid assessment of clerical sexual problems is found in the Chicago study, commissioned by Cardinal Bernardin, that examined the personnel files of all 2,252 priests who had served in the archdiocese between 1951 and 1991. Between 1963 and 1991, fifty-seven priests had been accused of sexual abuse, in addition to two visiting clerics. The commission reviewed all charges, not by the standard of criminal cases (which insists on proof beyond a reasonable doubt), but on the less stringent civil criterion of the preponderance of evidence, including legally inadmissible hearsay. Eighteen cases were judged not to involve sexual misconduct, leaving charges against forty-one priests, or about 1.8 percent of clergy. Only one instance probably involved true 'pedophilia', the sexual molestation of small children.'

5. Accusations of sexual assault can be very difficult to prove
It has been claimed that it has been very difficult for the Catholic Church to act decisively against many suspected sexual abusers among its clergy as it can be very difficult to substantiate accusations of abuse.
This point has been made by religious affairs commentator, Muriel Porter, in relation to accusations of clerical abuse generally, rather than simply Catholic clergy. Porter has stated, '[Accusations] are so very hard to prove because they are witnessless crimes, any attempt to prove them after the event, particularly years after the event, is fraught with difficulties, as we've seen with a number of high profile cases. I don't think we'll ever really know. All we can do is make educated guesses at the extent.'
Spokespeople for the Catholic Church have acknowledged that it can be difficult to respect both the rights of those making accusations of having been abused and clergy who have had such accusations made against them.
The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, when asked whether the Church could have shown more compassion to the victims of abuse by clergy, replied, 'I think you could say that, yes. But it is a wretched business and it is almost impossible to please everyone.'
Various church spokespeople have noted that the Church has a joint responsibility to both the supposed victims of abuse and to the clergy who have been accused of abuse. The head of the Jesuit order in Australia, Father Mark Raper, has stated, 'There [are] issues concerning the presumption of innocence, of the people who might be accused.'
Supporters of United States priests accused of abuse have even suggested that some of the complaints made against them may be vexatious. 'Disproving an allegation of abuse is inherently impossible. But David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and the other rabid zealots who comprise that organization's body are able to condemn and convict a priest solely on the word of the accused, and they revel in this.'

Arguments indicating that the Catholic Church does not offer sufficient support
1. The protocols adopted by the Catholic Church for dealing with accusations of sexual abuse against clergy are inadequate
It has been claimed that the Catholic Church only established protocols for dealing with accusations of sexual abuse against clergy when forced to by the bad publicity surrounding a number of such accusations. The support group for victims of abuse by clergy, Broken Rites, has further claimed that the procedures the Church has established are not externally verified and may be harmed by the Church's desire not to have to make large compensation payouts. Broken Rites has made the following claims, 'In 1996, after the high-profile jailings of Catholic priests and brothers, the Australian bishops published a glossy booklet, entitled Towards Healing, promising justice to survivors. The church established its own procedure for handling sex-abuse complaints, to be administered by a National Committee for Professional Standards ( NCPS). It also established a Professional Standards Resource Group ( PSRG) in each state to do the actual processing of complaints. This process applies in all of Australia's thirty-odd Catholic dioceses (except the Melbourne diocese) and also in the hundred-or-so religious orders.
Unfortunately, the Catholic Church's complaints structure is overwhelmingly "in-house"; it has an obvious shortage of non-Catholic members. It is male-dominated and clergy-dominated. The NCPS typically includes a bishop or two, an influential priest or two, a religious Brother representing male religious orders, and a religious Sister representing female religious orders.
Furthermore, the national committee has been headed for years by a nun who has been simultaneously a board member of the Catholic Church's insurance company - the company that finances the church's compensation payouts to victims. This woman's dual role is a clear conflict of interest.'
Fr Chris Riley, who heads Youth Off The Streets, a Sydney welfare service that assists homeless, drug addicted and abused young people, has claimed that the Towards Healing program hurt the Church's credibility and meant victims often did not have their day in court.
Fr Riley has urged that any family confronted with sexual abuse should go straight to the police and have the matter dealt with in court.
'Towards Healing, to me, I have to say, is a joke,' Fr Riley has stated. 'The perpetrator is the only winner there because often they are not charged, because it (the case) is settled. This is obscene, settling those sort of cases behind closed doors.'

2. The Catholic Church too readily accepts the word of those accused of abuse
It has been claimed that the Catholic Church has been too ready to accept the word of clergy who have been accused of sex abuse. One such case involves the current Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell and Father Terence Goodall, now convicted of sex offences.
In 2003 Cardinal George Pell dismissed a sex abuse complaint against Goodall, because he gave weight to the priest's claim the encounter was consensual. This is despite the fact that Terence Goodall now admits that the sexual encounter between he and his victim was not consensual and further that he (Goodall) had never claimed that the encounter was consensual. Terence Goodall stated, 'I certainly did not say it was consensual, I don't know where they got that from.'
This case and many others have been used to suggest that the Catholic Church in Australia has been too ready to assume that clergy are innocent of the accusations made about them.

3. Clergy accused of abuse tend to be relocated rather than investigated
The support group for victims of abuse by clergy, Broken Rites, has made the following claims, 'Commonly, Catholic victims ... often ... merely told a church official - perhaps at a bishop's office or the headquarters of a religious order. But this enabled the church officials to "tip off" their colleague, the offender; and then perhaps he would be transferred to a different parish or a different school or, in some cases, to another diocese, to abuse new victims; or he might be awarded an overseas "study" trip. The offender's former parishioners (or students) would not be told why Father (or Brother) was leaving his old parish, and the new parish (or school) would not be warned why Father or Brother was arriving. Thus, countless children and vulnerable adults were put at risk.'
John Massam, in an article posted on Online Opinion in April 2003, noted that the tendency for the Church in the United States to merely relocate serial sexual offenders had become very general. Massam stated, 'The situation was so bad more than 15 years ago that the US independent newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, on June 7, 1985, named every convicted US priest, in an effort to get the bishops to stop the clergy corrupting young people - but the "forgiveness", "repentance", and transfers of serial paedophiles continued.'
Fr Kevin Dillon of Geelong has claimed that there are prominent Catholic clergy who have tried to trivialise sexual abuse allegations troubling the Church. Fr Kevin Dillon has said the attitude of some of his colleagues that had allowed for the reallocation of suspected and convicted pedophiles made him cringe with embarrassment.
It has further been claimed that the Catholic Church's established failure to address directly cases of sexual abuse by clergy reported to it has weakened the standing of the vast majority of innocent priests.
Gary Fisher stated in 2002, 'In terms of numbers, child sexual abuse and pedophilia are relatively rare in society and by projection should be correspondingly rare in the Catholic Church and its clergy. By systematically not reporting priests and brothers accused of such behaviors to civilian authorities, the church has put the motives and behaviors of the overwhelming majority of all decent priests in question.'
Geoffrey Robinson, a retired auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Sydney, has stated, 'As long as the Church seeks to manage rather than confront, the devastating effect the scandal has had on the Church will continue and will cripple other activities. Of what use is it to proclaim a "new evangelization" to others if we are not seen to have confronted the suppurating ulcer on our body? In all our preaching to others, we would lack credibility. Cardinal Bertone does not seem to realize just how much credibility the Church has lost over the last twenty years and how seriously we must act in order to regain it.'

4. The apology offered by Pope Benedict was inadequate
Advocacy groups acknowledged Pope Benedict's 'heartfelt' statement and hoped it would mark a turning point in the church's handling of sexual abuse by clergy. However, these groups have also called for more practical help, describing words as 'just another drop in a bucket full of tears' and saying they were meaningless unless the church overhauled its compensation policy.
Chris Maclsaac, a spokesperson for the advocacy group, Broken Rites, has stated, 'Sorry may be a start but we want to see a lot more. We want the victims to be treated fairly, we don't want them to feel that they have been shut out, we don't want them to be re-abused by church authorities.'
The parents of two daughters abused by a priest in Melbourne also described the apology as disappointing. Anthony and Christine Foster had returned from a British holiday in the hope of meeting the pope to press for better treatment for victims. The Fosters' daughter Emma committed suicide this year aged 26, after struggling to deal with abuse by a Melbourne priest at a primary school. Her sister Katie, who was also abused, turned to alcohol in her teens and was left brain-damaged after being hit by a car while drunk.
Anthony Foster said of the papal apology, 'They are only words - the same thing we've been hearing for 13 years. It is simply an apology, there is nothing practical there which is what we were looking for.'
At a Sydney demonstration against Catholic church policies, Wayne Elliott, who said he was a victim of child abuse but not by priests, also condemned the apology as insufficient. 'It is frankly not worth the paper it is written on. They need to do far more than that and they should have apologised a long time before.'

5. The approach adopted toward financial compensation for victims of abuse is unjust
The support group for victims of abuse by clergy, Broken Rites, has stated, 'Broken Rites is skeptical about the amounts of compensation that are being paid under the Towards Healing process. These amounts are less than the victim would obtain by suing the church for damages in the civil courts. One reason why the Catholic Church established the Towards Healing process was to limit the church's liability to pay compensation to victims.
When a diocese or religious order makes a payout to a survivor, the victim signs a Deed of Release, acknowledging that this is a full and final settlement and absolving the diocese or religious order from any further damages claims by this victim. This document does not prevent victim from reporting the crime to the police or from talking to the media. The only stipulation is that the survivor must not reveal the payment.'
There has also been concern expressed that the maximum compensation payment the Church will make under its internal processes in Victoria is $50,000. It has been claimed that Melbourne's 'unjust' system for dealing with sexual abuse has probably saved the Catholic Archdiocese more than $40 million that should have gone to victims.
Anthony Foster, the father of two schoolgirls who were repeatedly raped by a priest, has said that only in Melbourne, under the system set up by now Sydney Archbishop George Pell, was compensation capped (at $50,000). There was no cap in the Towards Healing protocol that applied in the rest of the Catholic Church in Australia or in the civil courts.
'When we went to court - as invited to by Cardinal Pell - they settled for a much larger sum. It's all about saving money,' Mr Foster said.
Fr Kevin Dillon of Geelong has claimed, 'We should offer as much compassion as we can; we should be the ones binding up bonds, and not be the wounders.' From this point of view, Fr Dillon has criticised the $50,000 cap put on compensation claims in Victoria for sexual abuse victims. 'For most people it's a life sentence and I can never understand why compensation is capped, because each case is different,' Fr Dillon has argued.

Further implications
It remains to be seen whether the public apologies Pope Benedict has offered in both the United States and Australia to the victims of abuse from Catholic clergy will have a practical impact on how the Catholic Church in either country deals with the complaints of victims.
It appears beyond dispute that the publicity these cases have received has gone a significant way toward heightening the awareness of Catholic bishops within Australia that this is a real problem and one which cannot be hidden or ignored.
It has been argued that the Church's belief in the value of penitence and the possibility of redemption has led many within the Catholic Church in Australia to treat the behaviour of pedophile clergy and other sexual abusers within the Church with a degree of lenience these offenders would not receive under criminal law. It appears that this accepting attitude is no longer seen as sustainable and that the Catholic Church in Australia and around the world is coming to the recognition that the victims of abuse are at least as worthy of support and compassion as the perpetrators of it.
Despite this, however, the Catholic Church in Australia appears reluctant to offer the level of compensation to the victims of abuse that they would receive under civil law. It also seems from the remarks of some bishops that they do not yet have a proper appreciation of the enduring harm that can be done to many victims of abuse. World Youth Day (WYD) coordinator Bishop Anthony Fisher accused sex abuse victims and their families of 'dwelling crankily ... on old wounds'. The bishop was generally condemned for his lack of sympathy and understanding, however, it is concerning that the bishop was capable of making such an observation.

Newspaper sources used in the compilation of this issue outline

Herald-Sun: July 17, page 3, news item, `Fury at "cranky" sex slur'.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24032225-2862,00.html

The Australian: July 17, page 6, news item by J Madden, `Bishop attacked on sex abuse remarks'.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24032546-2702,00.html

The Age: July 17, page 1, news item by Barney Zwartz, `Don't be so cranky: bishop's advice to sex abuse victims'. (ref to remarks by Cardinal George Pell)
No online link

The Age: July 14, page 13, comment (photo) by Paul Collins, `Out of touch, out of time'.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/out-of-touch-out-of-time-20080713-3eh3.html?page=-1

The Age: July 13, page 18, editorial, `Abuse scandals demand more than technical defences'.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/abuse-scandals-demand-more-than-technical-defences-20080712-3e66.html

The Age: July 13, page 1, news item (photo), `Pope says he will apologise over sex abuse'.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/pope-says-he-will-apologise-over-sex-abuse-20080712-3e6i.html

The Age: July 12, page 4, news item by Barney Zwartz, `Catholics appeal to Benedict on ordination of married men, women'.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/catholics-appeal-to-benedict-on-ordination-of-married-men-women-20080711-3dsk.html

The Age: July 11, page 17, comment by Muriel Porter, `(Cardinal George) Pell stands discredited. His failure is one of understanding'.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/pell-stands-discredited-his-failure-is-one-of-understanding-20080710-3d4o.html?page=-1

Herald-Sun: July 23, page 20, comment by Andrew Bolt, `Victim industry a culture of grief never resolved'.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24062550-25717,00.html

The Age: July 22, page 11,  analysis by Barney Zwartz, `In good faith'
http://www.theage.com.au/national/in-good-faith-20080721-3iqx.html?page=-1

The Australian: July 21, page 2, news item by Stephen Lunn, `Sexual abuse apology welcomed'.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24049050-2702,00.html

Herald-Sun: July 20, pages 6-7, news item by James Campbell, `Not enough, says dead girl's dad'.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,,24046692-661,00.html

The Age: July 20, page 1, news item by Barney Zwartz `"I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured"' (see also page 7 comment, `Apology welcome, but what next?').
No online link

Herald-Sun: July 18, page 35, comment by Andrew Bolt, `Easy target for bigots'.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24036598-5000117,00.html

The Australian: July 18, page 15, editorial, `Some wounds are too painful to heal'.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24037627-16741,00.html

The Australian: July 18, page 7, news item by Stephen Lunn, `Victims disappointed with pontiff's silence on apology'.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24037874-5017594,00.html

The Age: July 18, page 12, editorial, `A bishop's remark, not parents' grief, opens old wounds'.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/editorial/a-bishops-remark-not-parents-grief-opens-old-wounds-20080717-3gwg.html?page=-1

The Age: July 18, page 4, news item (photos of the Foster family) by Barney Zwartz, `Sex abuse victims "denied proper compensation"'.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/sex-abuse-victims-denied-proper-compensation-20080717-3gxo.html