The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and the Roman Catholic Church

2017 ◽  
Vol 74 ◽  
pp. 103-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas P. Doyle
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Institutional Responses

scholarly journals Bad Apples, Bad Barrel: Exploring Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by Catholic Clergy in Australia

2015 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 94-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jodi Death
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Catholic Clergy ◽  
Institutional Power ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Institutional Abuse ◽  
Cover Up

This paper considers constructions of institutional culture and power in the cover-up of child sexual abuse (CSA) by clergy in the Roman Catholic Church of Australia. The issue of cover-up has previously been considered in international inquiries as an institutional failing that has caused significant harm to victims of CSA by Catholic Clergy. Evidence given by select representatives of the Catholic Church in two government inquiries into institutional abuse carried out in Australia is considered here. This evidence suggests that, where cover-up has occurred, it has been reliant on the abuse of institutional power and resulted in direct emotional, psychological and spiritual harm to victims of abuse. Despite international recognition of cover-up as institutional abuse, evidence presented by Roman Catholic Representatives to the Victorian Inquiry denied there was an institutionalised cover-up. Responding to this evidence, this paper queries whether the primary foundation of cover-up conforms to the ‘bad apple theory’ in that it relates only to a few individuals, or the ‘bad barrel theory’ of institutional structure and culture.

Different Contexts of Sexual Abuse With a Special Focus on the Context of Christian Institutions: Results From the General Population in Germany

2019 ◽  
pp. 088626051988854 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Witt ◽  
Elmar Brähler ◽  
Paul L. Plener ◽  
Jörg M. Fegert
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
German Population ◽  
Childhood Trauma Questionnaire ◽  
Vast Number

Recent revelations of the extent of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in Germany and the United States have once more triggered the debate about sexual abuse. Those inquiries identify cases that are known to authorities or have been recorded in these institutions. However, to assess the full magnitude of the problem, data beyond recorded or known cases are needed, as it can be assumed that a vast number of cases are not reported and are hence not included in such file reviews. Therefore, representative surveys are needed. The aim of the present study was to examine the prevalence of sexual abuse by priests and in different contexts in the German population based on a representative sample. A total of 2,510 participants (54.3% female, M = 48 years) were retrospectively asked about different experiences, offenders, contexts, and so on, of child sexual abuse using questions that were used to assess child sexual abuse in prior surveys and the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ). In sum, 0.21% ( n = 7) of the participants reported child sexual abuse by a priest or pastor. 0.16% reported child sexual abuse in an institution of the Roman Catholic Church. Results also indicated that victims of sexual abuse by priests and pastors reported rather severe types of sexual abuse based on the CTQ in comparison with other contexts, such as schools. Extrapolating the data for the population, it can be assumed that the estimated number of victims is much higher than those identified by research based on recorded cases.

Exceptional Sexual Harms

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 734-754 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kate Gleeson
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Church Leaders ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Private Law ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Distinct Sense ◽  
Church Personnel

Questioning of Catholic Church leaders in the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has revealed a distinct sense of immunity and lack of responsibility for the crimes of church personnel, which has resulted in stymied justice for complainants in sexual abuse lawsuits. In this article, I explore this immunity by examining it in the context of treatments of sexual harms in other areas of private law, particularly religious exceptions to discrimination law, by which religious organizations are granted immunity from the modern rationale of the harms of discrimination on the grounds of sex and sexual orientation. In situating child sexual abuse claims in the broader sphere of private law, I aim to reveal law’s incoherent logic of sexual harms, and its implications for justice. The example of religious exceptions illustrates an incoherent problematization of sexual harm and responsibility in contemporary legal and political systems that aim to uphold modern values of equality and dignity while sustaining incompatible doctrines of religious autonomy.

The discursive production of public inquiries: The case of Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse

2020 ◽  
pp. 174165902095345
Author(s):  
Matthew Mitchell
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
News Media ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
The State ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
The Right ◽  
Media Discourses ◽  
The Church

Since the turn of the century, public inquiries into the perpetration and concealment of child sexual abuse within religious institutions have proliferated throughout Europe, North America and Australasia. This article examines the role that news media discourses might play in supporting this trend. Taking Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as a case study, I compare how news media constructed its precipitating issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church at two different points in time: the period surrounding the announcement of the Royal Commission and a period 10 years earlier when calls were made for a Royal Commission that were not actualised. I find that in the decade before the Royal Commission’s establishment news media deemed the Church capable of and responsible for delivering justice, and as such licensed it to respond to allegations of abuse internally. In the period surrounding the Royal Commission’s establishment, however, the Church was rendered complicit and had lost its authority to manage the issue internally, while the State had become marked as responsible for recourse instead. This suggests that the emergence of the Royal Commission was imbricated in broader discursive shifts regarding which institution was attributed the right and responsibility to respond. These findings both indicate that news media discourses may play a role in facilitating or inhibiting the emergence of public inquiries and also raise critical questions about the consequences of a discursive shift that centres the State as responsible for and capable of delivering justice in the aftermath of institutional child sexual abuse.

The spoken and unspoken nature of child abuse in the miniseries Devil’s Playground: The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, the Catholic Church and television drama in Australia

2016 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 83-93
Author(s):  
Terrie Waddell ◽  
Timothy W Jones
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Abuse ◽  
Child Abuse ◽  
Child Sexual Abuse ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Green Light ◽  
Royal Commission ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Institutional Responses ◽  
Abusive Behaviour

In a departure from Fred Schepisi’s film The Devil’s Playground, the television sequel Devil’s Playground focuses on the cultural impact of priest child abuse. It will be argued that the prolific mainstream media coverage of these crimes before the series was made, and anticipated during its screening, lent a form of permission to green light the production. In focusing on Case 28 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, this article will draw attention to the problematic nature of dramatising priest abuse in mainstream Australian television. While victims have willingly voiced graphic details of the sexual violence they experienced as children, after decades of silence, it is as if networks and producers are only now awkwardly grappling with these uncomfortable realities. In the process of sanitising such abusive behaviour, they reduce the degree of cruelty that survivors are intent on communicating.

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