dChan - Q Origins Project Archive

Have Christian institutions become synonymous with child sex

abuse?

It seems given the track record of child abuse, the Church

attendance in the US has seen steep decline. The case of

Australia is no different. 92% of Australians do not visit the

Church on a regular basis.

Milind Sathye

23-05-2020

"On May 7, 2020, Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sexual Abuse released redacted (censored) portion of its report. The Final Report: Religious Institutions (FRRI) 2017 and the unredacted part of the report reveals the dark world of child sexual abuse in the Christian establishment.

The un-reacted part of the report has three parts: Part 1 details case studies of child abuse in five Catholic institutions in Ballarat (Australia). These include St Joseph’s Home, St Alipius Primary School, St Alipius Parish, St Patrick’s College, and St Patrick’s Christian Brothers Boys Primary School and the public hearing thereof. Part 2 details the case of Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and its public hearing and Part 3 is about the response of the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat and other Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat to allegations of child sexual abuse against clergy, and that of the Congregation of Christian Brothers (Christian Brothers). The three un-redacted versions included: Un-redacted Report of Case Study No. 28: Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat (535 pages), Un-redacted Report of Case Study No. 35: Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne (289 pages), and Un-redacted Volume 16, Religious institutions Book 2 which focussed on Catholic institutions generally (936 pages).

Horror stories of child sexual abuse

The FRRI (2017) reveals the dirty world of child sexual abuse inside Christian institutions.

One of the witnesses, for example, told the Commission: ‘’The sexual abuse was horrific. It was painful, it was traumatic. It was terrible. And the fact that it happened twice was inconceivable. But it was just a chapter. For me the whole experience I had in that place was of abuse at any stage, physical abuse, beatings, indiscriminate beatings. I was so traumatised. I was so scared’’ (FRRI 2017:84).

In the Christian Brothers case, survivors narrated how it brought back memories of their childhood sexual abuse, leaving them feeling disempowered. One survivor told the Commission: ‘’when the two Brothers entered the room I cringed with fear. Even though I was an adult man … the fear from my childhood just came flooding back to me when I saw them. One of them was just looking at me and I thought to myself, ‘Gee, I have completely lost’ (FRRI 2017:455).

Yet another survivor told ‘’I had a number of serious psychological conditions, including post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, substance abuse problems’’ (FRRI 2017:469).

A survivor advocate Dr Doyle has well-summarised the devastation that abused children undergo – many throughout their lives.

‘’The narcissistic cleric fails to grasp the devastation his sexual abuse causes his victims, their families and the church community in general. Many victims have testified that their perpetrators convinced them that the sexual activity was special because it was ‘with Father’. Others have testified that the perpetrators actually intimidated and threatened them with divinely inspired retribution in this life or the next for speaking ill of a priest’’ (FRRI 2017:605). Dr Robinson confirms this. ‘’ Narcissism was one of the prominent personality ‘flavours’ she had encountered in priests and religious perpetrators in Australia with whom she had worked’’ (FRRI 2017:605).

The healing process that the Church offers to survivors is even more traumatic. A survivor narrated ‘’he was ‘left feeling really suicidal by the end of it’. He said, ‘Even today, going to Melbourne is traumatic for me, because it reminds me of the Towards Healing process’’ (FRRI 2017:438)’’.

The FRRI redacted part reveals the role of Cardinal Pell – one of the highest officials of the Vatican."