Royal Commission
Purpose Statement
Our Parish Community will acknowledge past wrongs and provide healing and support for all those who have been abused. We will pray that God will strengthen our resolve as disciples of Christ to be true advocates for the wronged and vulnerable.
Goals
To provide Parishioners with access to information about the Royal Commission and the Truth Justice and Healing Commission through our Parish Bulletin and website.
To provide opportunities to pray as a Parish Community for justice and healing and for God’s guiding grace during this difficult time for all members of the Church.
To provide forums for discussion so that Parishioners can review the findings of the Commission and express their thoughts and ideas on how our Community can find ways to work towards justice and healing for all.
To embrace and adopt the changes generated by the work of the Royal Commission to positively improve the way our society protects and values children.
For our Parish Community to openly support survivors and their families in finding justice and healing.
Royal Commission group
The Royal Commission Group works with our priests to pray, share our concerns and undertake initiatives that aim to help individuals and the Parish Community deal with the challenges facing the Church and its leadership in the light of the revelations of abuse within the Catholic Church by the Royal Commission.
We aim to better understand the issues and revelations and their impacts on our personal faith, our parish community and the whole church. We seek to explore how could we support each other in our community and find ways we could help all of those impacted.
Our focus is to:
Aid the healing process by helping those who suffered terrible things as children and comforting their families and friends,
Support the Royal Commission to bring to justice those who abused children and those who failed to protect children
Support our local clergy during this testing time of Royal Commission and welcome and support whistle blowers
Pray for spiritual guidance for our parish community so that we remain united, accepting and nurturing to each other during this time of scrutiny and to continue to spread the love of God to all
Pray that the healing love of Jesus, expressed particularly through our compassion and care, will ease their suffering and give them the strength to experience healing
We are very conscious that this is a difficult issue for many Catholics and that there are a variety of views in our Parish about how we should respond. We welcome those different views and hope that the ideas developed so far are understood and supported. We hope that in coming together to support those affected by abuse and each other as we deal with this issue, we will strengthen our sense of community.
A number of public meetings have been and will continued to be made available to provide opportunities for parishioners to discuss the outcomes of the royal commission parishioners may like to come together to give their ideas as to how we best respond to the Royal Commission.
The Royal Commission Discussion Group meets in the Parish Centre at Ryde monthly on the 4th Thursday of the month at 7:30pm and welcomes interested parishioners to join the group. For those seeking more information about the work of the group or who would like to join the group please contact the Parish office.
Truth and Justice and Healing Council
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating how organisations such as the Catholic Church responded to victims and allegations of abuse over the past decades. Read More>>>>
Support for Victims and Survivors
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