Today, almost 1,000 men and women travelled from around Australia to hear Kevin Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull apologise for the abuse, neglect and suffering they endured in foster care and orphanages between the 1920s and 1970s.

“All the religions*; their not here,” were words of an elderly victim of abuse interviewed onsite by television reporter.

Across threads, several OLO posters have stated Christianity has changed. The Church of old is not the Church of today. Yet, when the Government provides the chance to show regret, penance and humility, Christian leaders are no where to be seen.

Surely the cardinals and bishops could leave the palaces and silver service for one day to say “sorry,” for the sexual abuse by priests and ministers and, the beatings from nuns.

*She meant denominations, I suspect.

So they could admit liability?

So they could admit humility.

Apologize for what?.
Anything done in the name of God is OK.
The representatives of God are infallible.Just ask them.
Or is that just the POPE.

Oliver, I agree. If the government agrees that the government of the day was wrong in allowing the child migrants to suffer all forms of abuse, then they must also agree that the many religious groups that ran these homes were also to blame?

I would go one further and also suggest that the British Government also say they are sorry for sending their own children to an unknown fate half way round the world. All involved should be made accountable.

No not liability guilt, betrayal of their Reason to exist their GOD.
Too black and white STG, too forgetting and forgiving of those crimes, of the very evilness of them.
And hopeless as it seems they never said sorry, never said never again.
I pray, yes me, that we evolve, find reason to take responsibility for our actions, live by standards, without false Gods, any Gods

Has 'the Church' commented on why they weren't there?

It's part of the same package, suzeonline

>>I would go one further and also suggest that the British Government also say they are sorry for sending their own children to an unknown fate half way round the world.<<

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/nov/16/british-child-migrants-to-get-apology/

"The British government said Sunday that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would apologize for child-migrant programs that sent boys and girls as young as 3 to Australia, Canada and other former colonies. Many ended up in institutions where they were physically and sexually abused or were sent to work as farm laborers."

I would imagine that this was coordinated at some level.

Most regulars here would know that I'm no great fan of organised religion, but to its credit the Catholic Church does seem to have supported yesterday's apology from the PM. Indeed, they seem to have been apologising for their institutional abuse of children since at least 1996:

<< Statement from the Catholic Church on the National Apology to people who suffered in institutional care

Monday 16 November 2009
The Australian Catholic Bishops and Leaders of Religious Institutes welcome today’s national apology to people who suffered while in institutional care, and take the opportunity to restate their sincere apology for any mistreatment which occurred in Catholic-run institutions.

We pray that this apology, delivered by the Prime Minister in the national parliament, will play an important role in healing many of the wounds which were laid bare with great courage before the Senate Inquiry into Children in Institutional Care.

When the report from that inquiry was tabled in 2004, we formally renewed our apology to those whose abuse was perpetrated by Catholic Church personnel. An apology was first made to all people who suffered abuse by Church personnel in the 1996 document, “Towards Healing”. We sincerely renew this apology again today. >>

http://tiny.cc/chTGl

Credit where it's due, and all that.

CJM,

It is very good to see some effort was made by the Churches to apologise for wrongdoings. Still, I wonder why they didn't face the music, yesterday. I think being physically present on the day of the apology would have reflected more positively on the Churches than a press statement.

It would seem from the comments made on the Day, some the abused were unaware of the Churches' press statements. Pell et al. should have cleared their diaries for this one.

By way of comparison, usually, at the end of a war, there is some from of surrender with the leaders physically present.

I would suspect that these guardians were not parents themselves but behaved like school masters - teach the little children discipline and an ordered life. It was not till about the late 1960's child welfare institutions abandoned the institutional model for a family home atmosphere with not more than 8 children in the care of house parents.

I believe with our current knowledge we as a nation will not return again to use such institutions. My wife and I have a close friend who with several other women care for orphans in Indonesia. They run this home with about 40 orphans on compassion and the children treat them as mothers.

I am finding quite a different attitude toward the churches after this apology to the Forgotten Australians as opposed to the one delivered to the Stolen Generations.

I attended the latter occasion at parliament house with my family and reading some of the rural papers during our return trip I was struck by the amount of antagonism toward the apology with many making two points.

First it was the failures of the parents that resulted in the children being removed and secondly the Churches had only the best of intentions in the administration of care for these 'unfortunates'.

Thankfully I have heard not a whisper of these assertions on this occasion.

Only the idiotic would assert that the indigenous children left in these institutions received better treatment than the others and I would venture to say it may have been decidedly worse in many cases.

Why the difference?

I would be keen to know if Wilson Tuckey boycotted the latest apology.

Dear Olly,

I watched the entire program and I felt
overwhelmed that this day had finally arrived.
The words of the PM and Leader of the Opposition
embraced not only the people there but I felt
that everyone watching would have been deeply
moved as well.

I agree with you that it is a shame that there
didn't appear to be any Church Leaders in the
audience. They were so needed to be present.
They are supposed to be healers after all. It would
have meant a great deal, if the horrors of the past
were acknowledged and the healing could begin.
The healers, in whatever form, - ministers,
priests, nuns, teachers, need to work with abused people
to heal their life energies, they need mighty power
to align with them in order to bring them back into
society. We need an emerging healer
consciousness in the world today, if we're to emerge
out of the darkness of past evils. But first they
needed to take this first step of acknowledgment.
For church leaders, it didn't happen. Much to their
shame.

Foxy, I feel that the churches were correct not to be involved in this apology day.
Many of the people present would not have welcomed religious authority figures at this late stage in the proceedings.

Many of these people have very angry feelings towards Brothers, Priests and Nuns, among others. And with very good reasons.

They needed someone to say sorry, and I am glad it was the Prime Minister.
It was way too late for anyone else to say sorry.

Dear Suze,

I tend to agree with Olly on this - a physical
presence of at least some prominent church leaders
would have made an official "physical"
acknowledgement by their presence - of
the wrongs done. Of course it was correct for the
the PM to make the apology on behalf of the nation.

However, Thanks CJ - for the added information. I
didn't know about the written apology by church
leaders. That somehow improves things - just a
little. Still, their physical presence would have
also helped on the day.

Dear Suze,

I do recognise the concern you make. Having representatives of the culprit religious organisations present at the Apology might have been made the victims feel uncomfortable and I have no way of knowing, if the women making the comment on TV was typical of those gathered. On the other hand, victims often voluntarily attend court cases, which is stressful.

I think the PM did the right thing fronting for the Government. Yet, I am troubled that the press statement from the Churches was just an unwanted PR exercise and that to the clerics it was to be managed like an oil spill. I conjecture the clerics would have preferred the case would have been forgotten along with their brothers’ ill deeds.

Dear Foxy,

I think we are on the same page. I suspect there were no bishops lobbying the PM to attend and to show remorse.

Foxy,

What you say about healing is so very true. And it would seem the Christian churches in many forms are not in that space. Instead, we find the situation where empathy, compassion and honesty, loose out to authority, privilege and saving face.

Cheers,

Oly

The fact of children being removed from parents by the State and placed into the care of guardians has never changed. They are still abused and viewed as second class. Are you avocating that this practise by DOCS stop! Are they the next generation we owe an apology to?

Philo,

I agree, the abuse will not stop, yet we can increase awareness and try to diminish the number of examples. Given continuing media exposure, I think children's accounts might be believed today, whereas twenty years ago that was not the case. Likewise, DUI campaigns wont eliminate drink driving, but these campaigns are necessary.

We are starting to see junior clerics gaoled for offences. Good. The next step is the gaoling of the bishops, who cover-up events and "transfer" the offender, say from an ophanage to a primary school.

Although, I am unaware of any nuns being prosecuted for beating children with the strap, engaging in child labour and milking Govenment care allowances. The papers, a few weeks back, cited a significant example the aforementioned regarding nuns in Ireland.

When chidkred are abused there should be no such thing as Church previledge under Church and State.

Oliver,
I agree that there should not be any difference under the law, for any person. However standards have changed, parents straped their children in those days. The events of the 1940's were during war years where the children were supposedly being protected from what could be a worse fate - death.

My wife was born in Scotland during the war time and having lost her father she never knew in the war. Her mother moved to England and on the death of her mother at eight was adopted by a school friends parents. Children were catered for in the best way they could. Sure my wife was not deported to Australia to live in an institution but she was equally orphaned and had to adapt to a new family. She speaks only of them being her mother and father.

Philo,

I too admire most of the folk whom open their homes and families to orphans.Loving foster parets whom truly become "mum" and "dad".

Yet, we Church nuns not so long ago.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/at-the-mercy-of-nuns/story-e6frg6so-1225790158530

I was born the 1950s and saw the tail-end of corporal punishment in secular schools, yet fear the cases, now giving rise to concern, go beyond the sting of the cane on one's finger tips.

It would seem going on media reports, in Australia, these things happened up until at least the 1970s. Herein, some of the guilty must still be around. I wonder if they escape by way of the statute of limitations.

Dear All,

"Three Dublin archbishops — John Charles McQuaid (1940-72), Dermot Ryan (1972-84) and Kevin McNamara (1985-87) — did not tell police about clerical abuse cases, instead opting to avoid public scandals by shuttling offenders from parish to parish and even overseas to U.S. churches, the commission found." ...

"The report said all four archbishops sought 'the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities'."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hG7UpOwvc_tTJz3KkFUHO9AUBnBAD9C7E5L82

I just don't get it. Why doesn't the State (regardless of country) put these Church leaders on trial? And, if convicted, throw away the key?

It is also pathetic that the Christian "folk" sit silence and don't become enraged. If genuine priests were true to their convictions, they too, would turn on their leaders and peers. St*ff their vow of obedience. The issue is too big.

Is Australia in the same position as Ireland? Well, I think that we can do better than guess the answer.

"It is also pathetic that the Christian "folk" sit silence and don't become enraged. If genuine priests were true to their convictions, they too, would turn on their leaders and peers. St*ff their vow of obedience. The issue is too big."

Oliver, I recently watched the debate on Intelligence Squared - "Is the Catholic Church a Force for Good in the World". It made me think that the christian 'folk' are finally waking up.

The two people who spoke for the catholics were Ann Widdecombe and Archbishop Onaiyekan (of Abuja, Nigeria). Ann Widdecombe would have to be the nastiest apologetic for Catholicism I've ever seen or heard. She poo pooed the church's child abuse scandals as if they were nothing and really turned the whole crowd against the catholics, the pathetic Archbishop was hopeless, the audience was asked to vote before the debate, and after...eye opening stuff, its really worth a look, Christopher Hitchins and Stephen Fry on the other side!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2l

Thanks, trikkerdee. There were several interesting youtube sites. Cheers, O.