Religions for Peace Australia is providing coverage of state and national inquiries into child sexual abuse with multi-faith and interfaith perspectives as a service to the interfaith community.
This select coverage is offered as service to the religious and faith communities of Australia; there is no intention to single out nor provide critique of any single institution … Religions for Peace gives service to multifaith, multicultural and Interfaith networks.
The Catholic Church has not accepted the royal commission’s recommendation to break the seal of confession regarding child sex abuse, arguing it impinges on religions liberties. Almost nine months after the findings were handed down, the Catholic Church has delivered its formal reply rejecting one of the commission’s key recommendations.
The leadership of Against the Stream Meditation Society sent a letter to its community announcing that founder Noah Levine was found to have “more likely than not” “violated the Third Precept of its own Teacher’s Code of Ethics, namely, “to avoid creating harm through sexuality,” with multiple women, and that the organisation’s centers would be shutting down.
Pope Francis has issued a letter to Catholics around the world condemning the “crime” of sexual abuse committed by priests — and its cover-up — and demanding accountability.
The Vatican issued the three-page letter on Monday in response to new revelations in the US of decades of misconduct by the Catholic Church.
The Pope begged forgiveness for the pain suffered by victims and said lay Catholics must be involved in any effort to root out abuse and cover-up.
“You, my Catholic friends, deserve the good church. So does the world.” Rabbi Jeff Salkin on the new report of three hundred Roman Catholic priests sexually abusing a thousand children – and how Roman Catholics can hold onto their faith.
AUSTRALIA’S Catholic bishops will release the Catholic Church response to the child abuse royal commission “as soon as possible” after an extraordinary meeting in Melbourne next week.
The Prime Minister of Australia, the Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, will deliver a National Apology to Victims and Survivors of Institutional Child Sexual Abuse on Monday, 22 October 2018.
The Australian Government’s decision to deliver this National Apology follows the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse releasing its final report in December 2017.
Health and Integrity in Church and Ministry is a conference focussed on an ecumenical conversation on the task of rebuilding and renewal after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. The Conference will take place at the Melbourne City Conference Centre, over three days, commencing 27 August.
ACT Chief Minister Andrew Barr has praised the bravery of child sexual abuse survivors for sparking sweeping protections for children through the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
The ACT Government has officially adopted 290 recommendations from the royal commission, including creating a criminal offence for not reporting allegations revealed during confession.
The South Australian Catholic Church says it has been blindsided by news that clergy will have to report child abuse revealed to them in the confessional.
The Prime Minister of Australia will deliver a national apology to victims of institutional child sex abuse on October 22nd, which marks the commencement of National Child Week. The Prime Minister says the government has accepted 104 of the 122 recommendations from the child sex abuse royal commission.
Pope Francis has appointed Gregory O’Kelly, the bishop of Port Pirie, the special administrator of Adelaide following the conviction of Archbishop Philip Wilson for covering up child sex crimes during the 1970s.
The Catholic Church has signed up to the federal government’s national redress scheme for survivors of child sexual abuse.
The scheme will take effect from July and requires the states and territories as well as non-government organisations such as churches and charities to opt into the scheme and agree to pay victims abused within their organisations up to $150,000 compensation.
One of the west’s largest Buddhist organisations has admitted to sexual abuse by its teachers, announcing it will take urgent measures to tackle the problem. Leaders of Shambhala International, which has more than 200 meditation centres across the world, including several in Australia, admitted to major failures in how it dealt with “abhorrent sexual behaviour”.
Michael Salter is a criminologist specializing in gendered violence, child abuse, and mental health. He is also a lecturer in criminology and member of the Centre for Health Research at the University of Western Sydney in Australia. Ten years ago, he started researching the benefits of meditation for child abuse survivors, and, in doing so, found a personal connection to Buddhism. He says that Buddhism has provided him with the compassion and stability he needs to do his work as a criminologist. Dr Michael Salter was also involved in the recent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
University of Melbourne Chaplaincy and Religions for Peace Australia – Victoria Branch, conducted an extensive presentation into clerical culture and its effect on Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) at Melbourne University on Tuesday 6th February 2018. The presentation was well attended.
University of Melbourne Chaplaincy and Religions for Peace Australia – Victoria Branch, invite you to attend a you to a FREE lecture on Tuesday 6th February 2018 on Appraising the Royal Commission Report into Sexual Abuse and Religious Organisations.
Clergy sexual misconduct is defined as sexual advances or propositions made by religious leaders to a person in the congregations they serve (who are not their spouses or significant others). Misconduct includes such actions as minor as a proposition, up to and including sexual intercourse. Buddhist sanghas are as prone to this kind of misconduct as any other religious community.
Following discussion of allegations of abuse, Sogyal Rinpoche, Buddhist teacher and author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, “has decided, with immediate effect, to retire as spiritual director from all the organizations that bear the name of Rigpa in different countries around the world,” according to a press release from the organization dated today.
