Our top stories
Black Collar Crime
Current court cases
Contact Us
Donations
Search
What's new
See the latest from Broken Rites Australia on our What's New page, which is updated regularly.
Supporting the victims
Broken Rites Australia was formed in 1992 by victims of church-related sexual abuse — and this photo demonstrates why our organisation was needed.
In the photo, Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale (left) walks to court, accompanied by his support person (Bishop George Pell, then an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne), when Father Ridsdale was pleading guilty to his first batch of criminal charges in May 1993.
But no bishop accompanied the victims, who felt deserted by the church hierarchy. Therefore, Broken Rites quickly became Australia's main support group for church-abuse victims.
Broken Rites has supported victims (male or female) from the Catholic Church, the Anglican Church and the Uniting Church, as well as from smaller denominations.
About 90 per cent of the men and women who have contacted Broken Rites Australia have been from a Catholic background.
The researchers and advocates in the Broken Rites Australia executive team all have a Catholic background but we are non-denominational in our outlook.
How we help
Broken Rites receives telephone calls and emails from throughout Australia.
Broken Rites can advise a victim about various ways to obtain justice (more about this later in the article). We help victims to become survivors.
To empower victims, we maintain lists of church personnel who have been sentenced in the criminal courts or who have been the subject of civil out-of-court processes. Broken Rites has supported the victims in these cases — either before or after the commencement of the justice process. Some examples of these cases are listed on our Black Collar Crime page but this is not a complete list. These are merely cases in which Broken Rites provided support.
For a detailed analysis of some individual offenders, see Our Top Stories.
Our articles are written in a professional, non-sensational manner. We protect the privacy of victims.
Our research and findings
Broken Rites investigates church-related sexual abuse. This abuse may have occurred in parishes, church schools, church youth clubs or church-affiliated children's homes. The offenders may be clergymen, religious brothers, church-school teachers or other church personnel.
Research by Broken Rites Australia has demonstrated that:
- Too often, sexually-abusive personnel survived in the church while their colleagues and superiors looked the other way. The apathy or negligence of these colleagues and superiors encouraged the offenders to continue offending. The offenders hoped that their religious status would protect them from exposure.
- If complaints arose, offenders were often transferred to a new parish or a new school, where they were inflicted on additional victims.
- Too often, pressure was put on church victims to keep quiet about the offences. Many victims have to wait until they reach adulthood — or until their parents have died — before they can reveal that they were abused by an institution that their parents trusted.
- In many cases, the secretive sexual abuse has disrupted a victim's schooling or personal development, perhaps resulting eventually in sexual problems or marital breakdown or psychological problems or substance abuse or unemployment.
- This culture of church sexual abuse was successfully concealed from the public — until Broken Rites Australia began removing this cover-up in 1993. A similar exposure developed in the United States, especially after the year 2000, but Broken Rites Australia was already a pioneer in this field, as shown in Our Top Stories.
Broken Rites Australia is not connected with any church or religious organisation.
Broken Rites does not charge for its services. It is non-profit and unfunded. It relies on donations from supporters.
Broken Rites Australia is operated by an executive committee of part-time volunteers who have experienced church-related sexual abuse themselves (or who have a church-abuse victim in their family). We are therefore motivated to help other people — free of charge.
Our executive committee members have expertise in research, investigation and advocacy. Our professional expertise is demonstrated in our Black Collar Crime page and in Our Top Stories.
We donate our time and expertise to Broken Rites as a community service.
Male and female victims
It is never too late to report church sex-abuse. Church victims are invariably adults when they eventually contact Broken Rites.
Of the men and women who contact Broken Rites, most say that the abuse happened in childhood (up to the age of 16 or so). Child sex-abuse is always a criminal offence and the offender, if prosecuted, is not allowed to use "consent" as a legal defence.
Of all the people who contact Broken Rites, more than half are males. (In an analysis that we conducted of our first 1000 callers in 1993-94, the ratio of males to females was 55 to 45.)
Among our male callers, the abuse usually happened under the age of 16.
Among our female callers, most were abused as children but a significant minority were abused as adults while in a vulnerable situation — for example, a single or separated or unhappily married woman who consulted a church pastor and was then sexually abused in the course of "counselling". (A psychiatrist who did that would face de-registration, so why not a clergyman?) In some cases, a sick or medicated woman has been abused by a hospital chaplain.
Catholic Church victims
There are many reasons why so many Catholic victims have contacted Broken Rites.
The Catholic Church claims to preach very "high" moral standards. This pious public image unfortunately caused Catholics to believe that they and their children are "safe" in the hands of Catholic clergy and religious personnel. This has placed many children and vulnerable adults in danger.
Furthermore, until recently, the Catholic Church has skilfully managed to cover up cases of sexual abuse within its ranks. Too often, Catholic child-victims felt that they were prohibited from reporting the abuse to anyone, even to their parents. Too often, Catholic parents were reluctant to consult the police.
Commonly, Catholic victims maintained a long silence about their abuse. If they did report the abuse, often they merely told a church official — perhaps at a bishop’s office or the headquarters of a religious order. But this enabled the church officials to "tip off" their colleague, the offender; and then perhaps he would be transferred to a different parish or a different school or, in some cases, to another diocese, to abuse new victims; or he might be awarded an overseas "study" trip. The offender’s former parishioners (or students) would not be told why Father (or Brother) was leaving his old parish (or school), and the new parish (or school) would not be warned why Father or Brother was arriving. Thus, additional children and vulnerable adults were put at risk.
In Australia, this Catholic cover-up began to break down after Broken Rites began operating its national telephone hotline in 1993. We began receiving calls from thousands of people (mostly Catholics), alerting us to cases of church sex-abuse that had hitherto been covered up. Our first cases, beginning in 1993, resulted in the jailing of several Catholic priests and religious brothers throughout 1994, 1995 and 1996. These convictions created a big impact in the Australian news media. This publicity prompted more survivors, especially those with a Catholic background, to phone Broken Rites for help. This helps to explain why Broken Rites has been involved in so many Catholic cases.
Obtaining justice
Broken Rites can explain to a victim the various options that are available for obtaining justice. For example:
- At the very least, a victim can demand a written apology from the church authorities; or
- If a victim is seeing a professional counsellor, the victim can arrange for the church accountant to send the counsellor's monthly fee directly to the counsellor; or
- A victim might ask the church authorities to cover various other support services to repair a damaged life; or
- Sometimes a victim may choose to have a confidential chat with an appropriate police officer about the offender's record — and about chances of a criminal prosecution.
Consulting the police
If the offender is still alive, Broken Rites can give victims the contact details for an appropriate police unit in the victim's state. Some Australian states have a specialist unit that handles sexual crimes and child abuse. These specialist officers, who are likely to work in plain clothes, are experienced at listening to the survivor’s story. In Victoria, these specialist officers are called the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse (SOCA) unit; in other states, there are different names.
It is the victim, not Broken Rites, who contacts the police. Only the victim can provide the evidence. Broken Rites merely tells the survivor the relevant police phone number.
The specialist police officers will have a confidential chat with the survivor and they will tell the survivor whether or not a prosecution is viable. If the survivor wishes to proceed, the police then act on his/her behalf. The survivor has the right to opt out of the investigation process at any time. The prosecution cannot proceed without the survivor's co-operation.
Sometimes, when survivors consult the police, they find that the police are already interested in this offender because previous victims have contacted the police. Thus, in many of the Broken Rites court cases, the offender was charged in relation to several — or many — victims. This makes it difficult for the offender to get off.
As a result of these police cases, a large number of Catholic priests and brothers have been sentenced in Australian courts. A list of some court cases in recent years appears in our Black Collar Crime page. These are merely cases in which Broken Rites became involved.
In the majority of our Black Collar Crime court cases, the offender pleaded guilty.
In addition to the names on our Black Collar Crime list, a number of priests and religious brothers are currently before the courts or awaiting hearings. And others (not yet listed on our Black Collar Crime page) are currently under police investigation.
In Australia, there is no time limit on reporting a child-sex offence to the police. Australian courts recognise that church victims are often intimidated into silence for many years — perhaps until after they become adults.
When a church sex-offender is convicted, this helps the healing process for victims. Every conviction encourages new victims to contact Broken Rites, alerting us to other offenders.
The Catholic Church's "Towards Healing" process
As a result of the Broken Rites public exposure of Catholic Church sexual abuse from 1993 onwards, the Australian bishops became alarmed about survivors telephoning Broken Rites. Therefore the church established its own telephone hotline to compete with the Broken Rites number.
In November 1996, after the high-profile jailing of Catholic priests and brothers, the Australian bishops published a glossy booklet, entitled Towards Healing, promising justice to survivors. The church established its own procedure for handling sex-abuse complaints, to be supervised by a National Committee for Professional Standards (NCPS). This process applies in all of Australia’s thirty-odd Catholic dioceses (except the Melbourne diocese) and also in the hundred-or-so religious orders.
Unfortunately, the NCPS structure is overwhelmingly "in-house"; the national committee has an obvious shortage of non-Catholic members. It is male-dominated and clergy-dominated. The NCPS typically includes: a bishop or two; the head of a religious order of priests; a senior religious Brother; and a senior religious Sister.
As well as the NCPS, the church also established a Professional Standards Office (PSO) in each Australian state to process individual complaints. Attached to each state PSO there was a Professional Standards Resource Group (PSRG) to advise the PSO. One drawback of this "in-house" system is that a state PSRG was likely to contain a member (e.g., a priest or a religious brother) who is a colleague of the alleged offender in a case. And no state PSRG contained a member who was representing (or advocating for) victims.
The Professional Standards Offices were established with the help of the church's own insurance company, Catholic Church Insurances Limited, with the aim of limiting the church's legal liability — that is, to discourage victims from seeking fair and reasonable compensation towards repairing a damaged life. Many victims have found that the Towards Healing process is evasive and dismissive.
Despite these defects, it is often worthwhile for victims to tackle the Professional Standards Office but it is best to consult Broken Rites first. Broken Rites can inform a survivor about his/her rights and also about how to avoid being re-abused by the PS0 system.
Broken Rites has a list containing the contact address for the Professional Standards Office in each state. Victims can phone us on 03 9457 4999 — or email us — for further information.
A separate system regarding Melbourne priests
The Melbourne Catholic diocese (that is, around the city of Melbourne and the city of Geelong) has procedures which differ from the rest of Victoria and Australia. When Australia's bishops were slowly planning the national Towards Healing system throughout 1996, the Melbourne diocesan authorities were nervous about Melbourne church scandals that were about to become public. Accordingly, the Melbourne diocese urgently introduced its own complaints-resolution system in mid-1996, several months ahead of the remainder of the Australian church.
The Melbourne diocese has hired a senior barrister to act part-time in receiving and investigating complaints concerning priests and other personnel who come directly under the control of the Melbourne diocese. Generally this means diocesan priests (that is, priests ministering in parishes) — not religious-order priests (in monasteries etc). Complaints about religious-order priests — or complaints about religious brothers — in Melbourne may need to go to the Victorian PSO.
Thus, the Melbourne diocese does not participate in the Victorian Professional Standards Office. The Victorian PSO is confined to religious orders and Victoria's three country dioceses.
Any victim can find out more about this Melbourne system by contacting Broken Rites.
Broken Rites top stories
See examples of some successful Broken Rites cases here
Back to top of main page