Evaluating Towards Healing as an Alternative to Litigation as Redress for Survivors of Clerical Child Sexual Abuse

Abstract

Towards Healing was adopted by the Catholic Church in Australia as a mechanism to receive and respond to disclosures of clerical child sexual abuse. Parkinson (2014:131) describes the protocol as a ‘radical and proactive step’ in the effective provision of redress for survivors of sexual abuse by clerics within the Catholic Church. This comment questions both the necessity and viability of this scheme, as posited by Parkinson, in light of the experiences of survivors brought before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.