Church Victims Smirk at Bible Verse
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse continues with its inquiry of "Towards Healing" on sexual abuses committed by the Church in 1996.
During his opening address, Peter Gray, lawyer representing the Council, quoted a verse from the Bible. His address earned smirks from the viewing public, some even staged a walk out.
"This is a searing and decisive moment in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia. The sacred place of children, their innocence and their trustfulness, is central to the Christian tradition and to the Catholic faith. Many will remember from their own childhoods, the ageless words from the Gospel of Mark: Let the little children come to me, do not stop them. For it is to such of these that the Kingdom of God belongs," Mr Gray said.
A group pf victims and their supporters remarked harshly: "what a joke".
Mr Gray then explained that the passage expresses the "sacred place of children" within the realms of Catholic Faith.
"The Catholic Church comes before this Royal Commission acutely aware of its failures in this fundamental part of its mission," Mr Gray added said.
Speaking of the "sacred place of children", the inquiry then heard a testimony from a woman who was sexually abused by Father Francis Derriman, a priest of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, within the confinements of the church.
The victim, Joan Isaacs, testified that Father Derriman had her when she was just 14 years old. The priest continued to have her from 1967 to 1968. Each sexual abuse was done under the guise of religious grooming. Looking back, the religious grooming was more of a cult, said Ms Isaacs
"Frank Derriman created a cult-like group, which included myself and three other children," she said.
Father Derriman convinces girls to have carnal knowledge with him under the pretense that he had a lung cancer and that he needed to have sex.
Father Derriman had fathered a child from another victim who was 17 years old at that time.
Ms Isaacs then sought the help of her mother and together they took the matter to the parish priest. Unfortunately, the parish priest denied Ms Isaacs the Holy Communion saying she was sharing the "awful sins with Father Derriman."
The parish priest even "advised" her to look for someone her own age which led her to believe that the abuse was actualy her fault.
Ms Isaacs never stopped taking the matter to authority until Father Derriman was sentenced to one year in prison, to be suspended after serving four months.
At present, The Church claimed that such sexual abuses were already "ancient history."
But Lawyer John Ellis, a victim of child abuse himself, said that sexual abuse is at present remains a major issue within the church.
"The idea that all this is ancient history - and I'm sure that the cases that the commission is going to be looking at over the next couple of weeks are going to be cases that occurred some years ago. But this is happening today, last week, it will happen next week to people going through the Towards Healing process," Mr Ellis told media outside the court.