I watched 'Lateline,' last night (15th July 2008).

The following website gives a summary:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/16/2304692.htm?site=sydney

I'll just quote briefly from it:

"The father of two girls who were repeatedly raped by a
priest while they were primary school students in
Melbourne is on his way to Australia from Britain
seeking a personal audience with the Pope.

Anthony Foster's daughters Emma and Katherine were raped
by Melbourne priest Father Kevin O'Donnell when they
were in primary school.

Earlier this year Emma Foster committed suicide at the
age of 26. Katherine developed a heavy drinking habit
and was hit by a drunk driver in 1999. She was left
physically and mentally disabled and requiring 24-hour care.

In 1998 the family rejected the then-Melbourne Archbishop
George Pell's offer of compensation, made under his
"Towards Healing" protocols, and spent eight years
in a protracted legal battle.

They eventually negotiated a settlement, believed to be the
largest compensation pay-out of its kind in Australia.
The initial offer of compensation would have been capped
at $50,000.

Despite an earlier admission and an apology from
Archbishop Pell, during the settlement the
Church's lawyers denied that any admissions had
been made about the abuse of the two girls.

Mr Foster says he will not accept a papal apology
to Australian victims of sexual abuse
unless the Pope also moves to change the way
those victims are dealt with by the Church and its
lawyers..."

The reason I've started this thread on this Forum is
that I agree with Mr Foster. It is
time for the Church to stop fighting the victims in
court. It is time instead to beg their forgiveness,
and offer them continuing help. It is time to
accept responsibility for the harm done. Unless an
apology is backed up with action, it won't mean very
much.

Your thoughts please?

cont'd

My apologies - I could have sworn that I had
typed the Heading for this thread correctly.
Obviously I didn't.

It should read:

"Rape victims' father seeks papal audience."

It was taken from the ABC website that I've given.

The latest from the Catholic Church...

"But I would have to say ... the cardinal has led in the church in this country in trying to put in better and better processes to deal for these things so that we get it right and, in the meantime, to do all we can to prevent this happening again and to bring healing and justice to the victims".

Relatively speaking, Pell might have done some leading. But he doesn't have much to beat. This is a classic case of making the bar so low, that anything at all can be construed as leadership. I would argue that people like Anthony Foster have exhibited much more leadership than anything you'll find in the Church hierarchy.

The real leadership role the Church can now play is to do something tangible to fix the problems that exist today as a result of its past actions.

Dear Rob,

I fully agree with you.

As Mr Foster told "Landline,' and I quote:

he will not accept a papal apology
to Australian victims of sexual abuse
unless the Pope also moves to change the way those
victims are dealt with by the Church and its lawyers.

He told the ABC's program that he believes his daughter would
still be alive if the Church had been more supportive.

"In Melbourne, Archbishop Pell put a system in place which he
says he is very proud of and he said recently he doesn't know
what more he could do."

"There's a lot more he can do. He can beg forgiveness
from the victims, he can offer continuing help to the victims
and he can just stop fighting the victims in court."

Foster says the Church must do more than it has so far to help all
victims of sexual abuse.

"An apology is not enough unless it is backed up with action,
unless he removes all obstacles to continuing support
for victims."

For the love of God - this must be done!

We can only pray that it will be.

Foxy,

I saw the interview last night and got the immediate impression that Anthony Foster, through his experiences, has a good handle on what is required and where the weaknesses are in the system. He should know - after all, he's run into all of them head-on.

I think it would be good if the Church had some of its own bad experiences in order to get its feet on the ground on this issue. It's a fact of life that people don't take issues seriously until it affects them. As long as the Church has its diversions (eg the World Youth Day) it can always crow about the positives.

In light of that, what's probably required is that some similar-sized third party does something to upset the applecart a bit. Maybe the courts could look to see whether the spurious legal defence the Church puts up could be routinely struck out of court, or perhaps the Government could look at hitting the Church with a bit of stick to perhaps get reform of the dominant Church culture.

If this doesn't work, we could be on the slow road to China.

Dear Rob,

I feel so strongly about this issue.

As I've said before, I was raised a Catholic.

I had "goodness" belted into me.

The "wicked" shall be punished. Was
the mantra I grew up with.

So, I'll be damned, if I'm not wanting to
see justice done in this case.

They should practice what they preach.

They "wicked" does not exclude Church hierarchy.
It's time they realized they can't say one thing
and do another.

Hypocrites!