Broken Rites Australia — fighting church sexual abuse since 1992Broken 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 [Now Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney - efm]), 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.
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How we helpBroken 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.
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