The Catholic Church paid $276 million to victims of alleged sex abuse committed by priests in Australia over decades, an investigation says.
Critics say the system of payments is unfair and not all victims receive the same opportunities or compensation.
Since 2013, the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has been holding hearings on alleged Catholic Church sex abuse of children – mostly boys.
“Catholic Church authorities made total payments of [AU]$276.1 million [US$213million] in response to claims of child sexual abuse received between 1 January 1980 and 28 February 2015, including monetary compensation, treatment, legal and other costs,” the statement from the commission said on Thursday.
On average, sex abuse victims received AU$91,000 in compensation, it stated.
The Christian Brothers religious community “reported both the highest total payment and the largest number of total payments $48.5 million paid in relation to 763 payments at an average of approximately $64,000 per payment,” the document said.null
The report added that the Jesuits “had the highest average total payment at an average of approximately $257,000 per payment (of those Catholic Church authorities who made at least 10 payments).”
Read analysis of Catholic Church Authorities’ data on claims of child abuse https://t.co/4AYWsYEytb
“Even though the church has paid $270 million and it took a long time to get its act together to do that, there’s no doubt the system of paying people and compensating them is best done independently of the church through a national redress scheme,”the Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council chief executive, Francis Sullivan, told AAP.
Sullivan said that not all victims have equal opportunities or compensation.
“Some congregations pay far more than others. Some dioceses pay far more than others. It’s still not a fair system,” he added.
It’s a picture of great unfairness and inequity between survivors across Australia depending on where they placed their claim,” Helen Last, CEO of In Good Faith Foundation, which represents 460 abuse victims, told Reuters.
The commission was established in 2013 to investigate instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. This month’s report says that between January 1980 and February 2015, 93 Catholic Church authorities received claims of child sexual abuse from 4,445 people.
It managed to identify 1,880 alleged perpetrators, who included 597 (32 percent) ‘religious brothers,’572 (30 percent) priests, 543 (29 percent) lay people, and 96 (5 percent) ‘religious sisters.’ At least 90 percent of the alleged perpetrators were male, according to the report.
Sexual abuse scandals have long dogged the Catholic Church. In 2014, the Vatican said 3,420 credible accusations of sexual abuse committed by priests had been referred to it over the past 10 years, and that 824 clerics were defrocked as a result.
In January, Pope Francis called for “zero tolerance”towards sex crimes against children, and condemned it as “a sin that shames” both the perpetrators and those who cover up for their crimes.
21 October 2020 This newsletter gives an update on the National Redress Scheme (the Scheme). It covers the launch of new Scheme resources, a second anniversary review update and recent data.
The update contains material that could be confronting or distressing. Sometimes words or images can cause sadness or distress or trigger traumatic memories, particularly for people who have experienced past abuse or childhood trauma.
The Australian Government is committed to continually improving the Scheme for survivors.
Announced in the 2020-21 Budget, a further $104.6 million will be invested in the Scheme to improve and stabilise the operation of the Scheme and better support survivors to ensure the Scheme meets their expectations.
Redress Support Services play a critical role in providing timely, trauma-informed and culturally appropriate support to survivors. This includes providing emotional support for survivors, as well as practical support to complete an application and interact with the Scheme.
The department is aware that several Redress Support Services are experiencing increased demand. This funding will minimise the number of people applying without support and ensure that appropriate assistance is available to survivors.
Institutions
The Scheme is continuously working with institutions that have been named in applications or identified by other means to encourage them to join and participate in the Scheme. To date the Commonwealth, all state and territory governments and 288 non-government institutions covering around 53,300 sites such as churches, schools, homes, charities and community groups across Australia are participating.
A further 117 institutions have committed to join and finalise on-boarding by no later than 31 December 2020.
The National Redress Scheme review is seeking responses from survivors and support services, carers and advocates to a feedback study on experiences with the Scheme and especially with the application process.
The findings from this study will inform the findings of the review and are therefore very significant. The study is being conducted by the University of New South Wales and is confidential. The review needs your input to inform its findings and recommendations to improve the operation of the Scheme. There is one for survivors and the second is for survivor supports including advocates, carers, family members and support services. Please have your say. The study is open until 23 October 2020 and links to the study are as follows:
Pedophiles trade Child Porn through Dropbox Links on Instagram
The Atlantic first reported that teenagers stumbled upon a network of Instagram accounts that were sharing Dropbox links of child porn (Atlantic article). The way it worked is that pedophiles were using certain hashtags on images that advertised how to get in touch. Teens discovered this and proceeded to spam the offending hashtags with hundreds of memes, making it difficult for pedophiles to find each other and trade illegal content.
Brilliant. Kids defending other kids!
And, although it was an admirable diversion, unfortunately these criminals are resourceful. And, with over a billion monthly users, it’s impossible for Instagram to keep pace with nefarious activity.
Maybe your kid already uses Instagram. Great! I’m not saying you need to rip it away. In fact, that is often counterproductive. Instead, we hope this post will help you better understand that the way the app is designed creates risks.
Because remember, not all kids using Instagram end up being groomed and abused.
But, if grooming and child exploitation are easy on the app, my guess if you would want to know. Even CNN recently reported that Instagram is the #1 app for child grooming.
If your son or daughter receives a private, DM (direct message) from a stranger, does he/she know how to respond? It’s easier to do than you think. Remember, wherever the kids are is where the predators are.
We simply want this post to flash a light in dark places. Since Apple’s App Store Descriptiondoesn’t say anything about predatory activity, it’s our job to tell the truth.
**Warning. Some of the screenshots you will see in this post are not safe for work (NSFW) and include some of the most disturbing content we’ve ever encountered during over four years of researching social media. Nothing has been censored.
Four Grooming Paths on Instagram – Comments, Hashtags, Likes, and DMs
If Instagram leadership reads this post, they’ll try really hard to point to their community guidelines and their reporting channels, saying that they don’t allow predatory activity. But we would argue that the very way in which Instagram is designed creates grooming pathways. In other words – no amount of moderation or guidelines can change Instagram’s features. Allow us to explain.
Oh, and one more thing. Many parents who read this might think, “my child has a private account, so they’re fine.” That’s a common, but incorrect conclusion. None of the four feature issues we discuss below are impacted in any way by the privacy of an account. Anyone, whether private or not, can post comments and search hashtags, and anyone can be seen through the like count and sent a message via DM.
Pedophiles exploit Instagram’s comments to network with each other and fish for victims.
Within the comments, pedophiles find other pedophiles and peddle their illegal and disgusting content with each other. Here are a few samples from an endless number of comments (warning – these comments are extremely disturbing)
You also see comments that go directly at young people as a form of “fishing” for victims, waiting for a kid to bite.
Pedophiles exploit Instagram’s hashtags to drop horrible content into good, clean places.
Almost all social media platforms use #hashtags. Think of them as a card catalogue for social media content – a way to categorize millions and millions of images into groups so that I can find exactly what I’m looking for. We love them! Some people use them as a sort of witty, second language.
But the problem is that they can be used by anyone.
Let’s say for a minute that I’m a teen girl who’s interested in modeling. Or cheerleading. And my mom even made me have a private Instagram account (good job, mom!).
I take a photo at the beach with my friends, and I attach the hashtags #teen #teengirl #teenmodel #snapchat. Fabulous. Later on, with my girlfriends, I’m thumbing through the #teenmodel and #snapchat hashtags, and I see this:
See, any predator can attach #teenmodel and #snapchat to their photo. This allows that photo to show up in front of millions of teen girls, thumbing through #snapchat photos, hoping one will “bite.”
Notice in the one photo how part of the “sell” is to convince a girl to join him in Snapchat, which is a very secure environment for secretive activity. After all, >75% of teens have Instagram and >76% (AP Article) of teens have Snapchat, so there’s a good chance that if a kid has one, then they probably have the other.
In other words, #hashtags allow predators to hover over good places like a drone and drop their smut whenever they want. Pay attention to those screenshots – there’s nothing pornographic about them. There’s no swear words. No use of “sex.” But, the very nature of #hashtags as a feature create this grooming path.
And if someone reports the “daddy” posts you see above and Instagram takes them down, no problem. Since Instagram doesn’t require any identity verification, including birthday, real email, credit card, NOTHING, a predator can create another fake account in seconds. This is yet another huge design flaw that creates a situation where pedophiles don’t mind taking great risks and getting shut down – their attitude is, “I’ll just start over.”
[Note: we experienced this with “daddy,” who we reported multiple times. His account would be shut down, and then he popped up with a slightly different username seconds later, posting the same horrifying images of him masturbating and asking kids to connect with him “live.”]
Predators exploit Instagram’s likes (the heart) to identify potential victims.
Going back to our #teenmodel example, if you click on one photo, you might find that it has hundreds of likes (hearts) similar to the photo of the young boy below (sorry, but if you don’t want your photo in blog posts, then keep your account private).
Predators can click on the likes and see everyone who has liked this photo. Everyone. Even if they have a private account. From that list, a predator can identify someone young who looks interesting and send him/her a direct message (DM) – we’ll explain the whole DM feature in more detail next. But, note how the “likes” feature creates a target audience for sexual predators. This is shown in the image below.
Again, it’s a design flaw. The very nature of the likes feature creates a pool of young people for predators to target (to Instagram’s credit, they are considering dropping the “like” count attached to photos, but so far, this has only been speculated).
Which leads us to DMs. Direct Messages.
Pedophiles exploit Instagram DMs (direct messages) to groom kids. And they’re doing it very successfully.
Two weeks ago, PYE created a test Instagram account. This account was clearly for a young girl, who posted two selfies on the first day of existence. Tagged on these photos were hashtags #teen, #teengirl, #teenmodel. This account went out and “liked” a few photos with similar hashtags and followed accounts that were like mine.
Not much happened for the first six days of the account.
Then, one week later, something in Instagram’s algorithm triggered. It was as if some combination of the test account’s activity unleashed a tsunami of DM activity that hasn’t let up over the past four days, averaging over 10 DMs per day. The screenshots below show some of the activity, including a very creative porn link. Note – PYE is the one who scribbled out the man masturbating in the image below. The photo was sent to our test account as a DM, completely exposed.
Can Instagram Fix their Predator Problem?
Maybe. In order to clean up the issues above, Instagram would have to significantly alter numerous, core features. If Instagram were to create a “Safe Mode,” it might have to:
Remove the ability to DM to or with anyone who isn’t an approved follower.
Allow parents to create a whitelisted set of contacts. That means the child can ONLY like, comment, and DM with people who are on the whitelist.
Remove the ability to add hashtags.
I just don’t foresee Instagram making those changes.
What Can Parents do About the Instagram Pedophile Problem?
1. If your kid uses social media, including Instagram, be curious and involved. Remember, not every kid misuses these platforms. But, if you know the risks, then get involved and talk openly with your children about how they’re using the app.
2. Use monitoring tools like Bark (7-days free!) and Covenant Eyes (30-days free!) to monitor their smartphone social media and texting activity. Bark actually monitors images within the app for appropriateness and alerts parents when kids venture into inappropriate images.
3. Talk to your kids specifically about direct messages and give them guidance for what to do if someone tricky reaches out to them.
4. Visit our FixAppRatings.com campaign and push for change. Let’s embrace the reality that given Instagram’s current feature set, that it’s a 17+ app. It’s an app created by adults and for adults. Will you visit your state representative this month to share your concerns? Show him/her our draft #fixappratings resolution.
The only way anything will change with big tech companies is if the government does something. We’re convinced of it.
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Parents, we love BARK and how it helps parents AND kids. Here’s a real story…
“We knew our son was having some issues with school and in his social circle but he doesn’t talk to us about anything…he googled “What is it called when there’s a war going on inside your brain?”…The fact that he used the word “war” prompted BARK to mark it as violence…Call it depression or anxiety or regular mood swings teens experience, he wasn’t opening up to anyone about this and never mentioned it…I have a psych evaluation setup for him in a few days and I just have to say how grateful I am that BARK caught this. I would otherwise have no idea that this was even an issue for him and we can now get some professional help to ensure that it doesn’t become a true problem.”
Parents, do you want a better idea of what your kids are doing on social media? What about the comments on your daughter’s Instagram photos? Or, iMessage activity on your son’s iPhone? Then, look no further than Bark. You can start a 7-day free trial today.
*Note – links in this post might connect to affiliates who we know and trust. We might earn a small commission if you decide to purchase their services. This costs you nothing! We only recommend what we’ve tested on our own families. Enjoy!
I love life. Seriously! Each. Day. A. Gift. Former CPA, business advisor, youth pastor, development director. Manage marketing efforts for Covenant Eyes and CEO of PYE. God shares wild ideas with me about life while I run. I have a relentless drive to help families use technology well.
Hope Bastine was brought up in a “free love” community where sexual abuse of children was rife. As her abuser Derek Lincoln is finally brought to justice, she speaks to Sharon Hendry
DAN KENNEDY FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE Sharon Hendry
Sharon HendrySunday August 09 2020, 12.01am BST, The Sunday Times
For years I have suffered from raging insomnia, and as usual I was pacing the streets of my local town centre fuelled with adrenaline after a poor night’s sleep. I found myself in front of a drab police station and suddenly there was a eureka moment.
I was ready to break the codes of the deeply secretive religious organisation I had been born into and tell the story of horrific, repeated abuse that has haunted me for more than 40 years. So, just like that, in 2004 I walked into Watford police station and reported to the desk: “I want to talk to somebody about some abuse please.”
After Australia’s July 2020 weekend of ‘Black Lives Matter’, ABC’s Afternoon Briefing had Patricia Karvelas interviewing US Prof. Goff (sp.?). For many Survivours of Child Sexual Abuse, much of these debates have carried the same passion as what we’ve felt throughout our lives. Ignorance & turning attention away from are even spoken against in the bible. School lessons. Child care. Sports practice. School camps. A pattern forming…?
Black Lives Matter
JOE MCKENDRY
News of Jeffery Epstein also forms ‘front page news’, including parts of the British Royal Family, upper levels of US & International society. At the targeted end of this game are low income, low SES (socio economic status) population & young adults/teenagers. Suitably, Australia’s Judicial System has begun to publicly deal with more allegations following 2013-17 CARC. Highest of these has been George Pell. Sound familiar…?
From the topics presented since 2013, this RoyalCommBBC.blog has aimed to republish noteworthy journalism, factually-based info & ‘the other side of the coin’ POV. We don’t claim to be a Journalistic Reference to prove legal data; it isn’t to be used as an excuse or a bet; links can be arranged with suitable portals, where need be; as are related channels, following earlier BBC involvement of later ‘guilty’ Nudgee College staff. A later post will be arranged re: queries of Overlack. Seems too surreal…?
English summary: The cover-up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church has been occurring under the pontificate of six popes since 1922. For 1500 years, the Catholic Church accepted that clergy who sexually abused children deserved to be stripped of their status as priests and then imprisoned. A series of papal and Council decrees from the twelfth century required such priests to be dismissed from the priesthood, and then handed over to the civil authorities for further punishment. That all changed in 1922 when Pope Pius XI issued his decree Crimen Sollicitationis that created a de facto privilege of clergy by imposing the secret of the Holy Office on all information obtained through the Churchs canonical investigations. If the State did not know about these crimes, then there would be no State trials, and the matter could be treated as a purely canonical crime to be dealt with in secret in the Church courts. Pope Pius XII continued the decree. Pope John XXIII reissued it in 1962. Pope Paul VI in 1974 extended the reach of pontifical secrecy to the allegation itself. Pope John Paul II confirmed the application of pontifical secrecy in 2001, and in 2010, Benedict XVI even extended it to allegations about priests sexually abusing intellectually disabled adults. In 2010, Pope Benedict gave a dispensation to pontifical secrecy to allow reporting to the police where the local civil law required it, that is, just enough to keep bishops out of jail. Most countries in the world do not have any such reporting laws for the vast majority of complaints about the sexual abuse of children. Pontifical secrecy, the cornerstone of the cover up continues. The effect on the lives of children by the imposition of the Churchs Top Secret classification on clergy sex abuse allegations may not have been so bad if canon law had a decent disciplinary system to dismiss these priests. The 1983 Code of Canon Law imposed a five year limitation period which virtually ensured there would be no canonical trials. It required bishops to try to reform these priests before putting them on trial. When they were on trial, the priest could plead the Vatican Catch 22 defencehe should not be dismissed because he couldnt control himself. The Church claims that all of this has changed. Very little has changed. It has fiddled around the edges of pontifical secrecy and the disciplinary canons. The Church has been moonwalking.
Although mainstream media promote most NEWS releases, with ‘surprise-denial-regret’, any acknowledgement of Child Sexual Abuse is taken with expectations by CSA Survivours & those who work in the field. Even the Catholic Church’s Hierarchy are now admitting there is a problem, which needs to be solved.
More & more CSA Survivours are being brought to awareness that those close to them may not change their POV, yet with the gradual International flow, parallel with MeToo Movements Equality may be coming more into balance(?). Alike earlier ‘pendulum’ posts, preparation for counter-swings to Racism-Sexism-Instabilities will always occur. Staying connected, with those who truly know, understand & share with you is most important.
The manner in which the long-term effects of child sexual abuse have come to be conceptualised reflects, in no small measure, the very particular circumstances that surrounded the revelation of child sexual abuse as an all too common event in the lives of our children. The first phase of modern research into child sexual abuse was not triggered by observations on child victims, but by the self-disclosures of adults who had the courage to publicly give witness to their abuse as children. These early self-revealed victims, exclusively women, had often been the victims of incestuous abuse of the grossest kind, and plausibly attributed many of their current personal difficulties to their sexual abuse as children. This contrasts with the emergence of child abuse as a public health and research issue that has been driven by the observations of professionals caring for abused children.
Implications
The way child sexual abuse was placed on the public and health agendas put a stronger emphasis on the adult consequences of abuse than on the immediate implications for an abused child. It also emphasised the psychiatric implications of abuse because self-declared victims tended to focus on these, and these revelations often occurred in a broadly therapeutic context with mental health professionals. Early research into the effects of child sexual abuse frequently employed groups of adult psychiatric patients (Carmen et al. 1984; Mills et al. 1984; Bryer et al. 1987; Jacobson and Richardson 1987; Craine et al. 1988; Oppenheimer et al. 1985) which further reinforced the emergence of an adult-focused psychiatric discourse about child sexual abuse. It should also be noted that the manner in which child sexual abuse was rediscovered (for it had been well recognised in the 19th century) and the nature of the advocacy movement which placed child sexual abuse firmly on the social agenda also provided an almost exclusive emphasis on female victims and incestuous abuse. The implications remain largely unexplored of the abuse of boys (which for abuse of the most intrusive kinds involving penetration rivals in frequency that of girls), and of the fact that the majority of abuse is not incestuous.
Child sexual abuse is widely regarded as a cause of mental health problems in adult life. This article examines the impact of child sexual abuse on social, sexual and interpersonal functioning, and its potential role in mediating the more widely recognised impacts on mental health. In discussing the relationship between child sexual abuse and adult psychopathology, the authors evaluate a number of models, including the post-traumatic stress disorder model, the traumatogenic model, and developmental and social models. They look at family risk factors which predispose children from specific population groups to be at greater risk of abuse, and conclude that the fundamental damage caused by child sexual abuse impacts on the child’s developing capacities for trust, intimacy, agency and sexuality.
In little over a decade, child sexual abuse has come to be widely regarded as a cause of mental health problems in adult life. The influences of child sexual abuse on interpersonal, social and sexual functioning in adult life and its possible role in mediating some, if not all, of the deleterious effects on mental health, has attracted less attention and research, but is arguably equally important. For this reason, and because the mental health aspects have been so much more widely canvassed and ably reviewed (Tomison 1996), this review will emphasise the impact of child sexual abuse on social and interpersonal functioning, and its potential role in mediating the more widely recognised impacts on mental health.
Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse by Paul E. Mullen and Jillian Fleming http://www.aifs.gov
