Justice for those who have suffered

When local Newcastle journalist Joanne McCarthy called for a royal commission into the church’s child sexual abuse, it wasn’t because of her own cynicism - but because of the reality of clerical abuse in Australia.

A seminar conducted by Dr Christina Koutsoukos at the University of Newcastle on Friday with students brought to light media reporting on the reality of the Church’s child sex crisis.

The Daily Telegraph - July 18 2008

The tragic suicide of Newcastle-man John Pirona, after reaching a point of feeling “too much pain”, indicates victims need to be given a voice, free from fears of ridicule by institutional powers. 

The scandal has been unsustainably reported on since 1992 and was overlooked with the arrival of ‘World Youth Day’ in Sydney in 2008 within its official newspaper the Daily Telegraph who paralleled the Pope’s visit to that of a rock-star façade and failed to report from the victims’ perspective.

The pilgrims showered the Pope with affection while victims loomed in the shadows of shame and trauma, awaiting some sort of explanation as to why this powerful institutional abuse was covered-up.

When the anticipated papal response to the scandal occurred, this story did not appear until page 9 of the Daily Telegraph.

Deserting its short news cycle, the Newcastle Herald prepared a sustained operation to support victims and families, which McCarthy insisted on a “determination to expose the truth”and uncovering the injustices of those who failed in their duty of care.

Joanna McCarthy's 'Shine the Light' campaign. source: Newcastle Herald

“We are, inherently, a society that believes in the fair go, and we respond when that concept is trashed by the powerful, and ignored by those whose duty it is to represent us,” McCarthy said. 

Dr Koutsoukos praises McCarthy as “she effectively transformed the discourse surrounding sex abuse and set up a challenge to the power structures of the Catholic Church that protected ‘criminals within the clergy’”.