A major Australian law firm is ending its 50-year relationship with the Catholic Church amid reports some of its lawyers were uneasy with its defence of clergy accused of child sexual abuse. Melbourne-based firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth, recently named Australian Law Firm of the Year in the 2022 Chambers Asia Pacific & Greater China Region Read more
The Melbourne Archdiocese compensation plan may find itself facing increasingly large payouts to clergy abuse victims. The current plan was designed to limit financial damage to the Church by having clergy sex abuse survivors sign away their rights to sue the Church. Known as the Melbourne Response, compensation payments were initially capped at $50,000 when Read more
Capping compensation payments to abuse victims saved Melbourne archdiocese A$62 million, according to calculations by an Australian newspaper. The Melbourne Response, which was created in 1996 by then-Archbishop George Pell, capped payments to victims at $A50,000 and then $A75,000. But a Sunday Age analysis of data compiled by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Read more
The Church’s Melbourne Response for helping abuse survivors discouraged victims from contacting police, a royal commission case study has found. Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse issued a case study this week into the programme instituted by then-Archbishop George Pell in 1996. The study identified 12 systemic issues. One issue was Read more
The Catholic Church in Australia set aside tens of millions of dollars to compensate sexual abuse victims years before it publicly admitted the problem. The Sunday Age reported that a warning was issued by a church insurer to the nation’s bishops as early as 1988. This was more than seven years before the Melbourne Response Read more
Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne says that until 2001, priests found guilty of sex crimes often kept their positions because of Vatican intransigence. Archbishop Hart told Australia’s Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that a conviction was often not sufficient to have a priest defrocked. “There was a leaning in favour of Read more
Cardinal George Pell has sparked outrage with comments that the Church should not be held responsible for crimes committed by priests. Last week, Cardinal Pell used a “trucking company” analogy before Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Speaking by video link from Rome, the Cardinal likened the Church to a trucking Read more
The Catholic Church in Melbourne is to revisit the cap it puts on monetary compensation to abuse victims with a view to removing or raising the limit. This came after Cardinal George Pell told parents of two victims that he would make moves to remove the cap and revisit 300 existing claims against the Church. Read more
Cardinal George Pell has admitted that he wanted to avoid big damages verdicts when he set up a response to deal with child sex abuse complaints in the Church. Cardinal Pell said this in giving evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse in Sydney. The Melbourne Response, which Cardinal Pell Read more
A senior Australian parish priest has told the Victoria inquiry into clergy sex abuse that the Catholic Church’s procedures for dealing with abuse have failed and should be closed down. “Time is up, the Church has had more than a fair chance. The Melbourne Response and Towards Healing have lost all credibility and are beyond Read more