There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by priests, nuns, and other members of religious life in the Catholic Church. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Edmund Rice.
Evelyn is a 2002 Irish drama film directed by Bruce Beresford and written by Paul Pender, loosely based on the true story of Desmond Doyle and his fight in the Irish courts to be reunited with his children. The film stars Sophie Vavasseur in the title role, Pierce Brosnan as her father and Aidan Quinn, Julianna Margulies, Stephen Rea, and Alan Bates as supporters to Doyle's case. The film had a limited release in the United States, starting on December 13, 2002 and was later followed by the United Kingdom release on March 21, 2003.
The Diocese of Ballarat, based in Ballarat, Australia, is a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and was established in 1874. Its geography covers the west, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The cathedral is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.
St Patrick's College, sometimes referred to as St Pat's, Paddy's or SPC, is an independent Catholic secondary day and boarding school for boys, located in central Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The school was founded by the Congregation of Christian Brothers in 1893, who continue to run the school through Edmund Rice Education Australia. The school provides education for boys from Year 7 to Year 12, with an emphasis on academic and sporting programs.
The Yeshiva College, also known as the Harry O. Triguboff Centre, is a Hasidic Jewish synagogue, learning centre, and library of the Chabad-Lubavitch nusach, located at 36 Flood Street, in the Sydney suburb of Bondi, New South Wales, Australia. The Centre runs various adult and child-based educational programs.
The Boys of St. Vincent is a 1992 Canadian television miniseries directed by John N. Smith for the National Film Board of Canada. It is a two-part docudrama inspired by real events that took place at the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland, one of a number of child sexual abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church.
Deliver Us from Evil is a 2006 American documentary film that explores the life of Irish Catholic priest Oliver O'Grady, who admitted to having molested and raped approximately 25 children in Northern California from the late 1970s through the early 1990s. Written and directed by Amy J. Berg, it won the Best Documentary Award at the 2006 Los Angeles Film Festival and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, though it lost to An Inconvenient Truth. The title of the film refers to a line in the Lord's Prayer.
The Toowoomba Anglican School is an independent Anglican co-educational primary and secondary day and boarding school located in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia. The school is a member of the Anglican Diocese of Brisbane and is affiliated with the Junior School Heads Association of Australia.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba is a Latin Rite suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, established in 1929, covering the Darling Downs and south west regions of Queensland, Australia.
Dolores Claiborne is a 1995 American psychological thriller drama film directed by Taylor Hackford and starring Kathy Bates, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Christopher Plummer, and David Strathairn. The screenplay by Tony Gilroy is based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The plot focuses on the strained relationship between a mother and her daughter, largely told through flashbacks, after her daughter arrives to her remote hometown on a Maine island where her mother has been accused of murdering the elderly woman for whom she had long been a care-provider and companion.
Aden Young is a Canadian-Australian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Daniel Holden in the SundanceTV drama Rectify, for which he was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. He has appeared in American, Canadian and Australian productions.
Alfred Charles Holland was an Australian Anglican bishop. He was consecrated as a bishop on 6 August 1972 and was an assistant bishop in the Diocese of Perth before becoming the diocesan Bishop of Newcastle in New South Wales from 1978 to 1992.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
Oranges and Sunshine is a 2010 Australian drama film directed by Jim Loach as his directorial debut. It stars Emily Watson, Hugo Weaving and David Wenham, with a screenplay by Rona Munro, based on the 1994 book Empty Cradles by Margaret Humphreys.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
Spotlight is a 2015 American biographical drama film directed by Tom McCarthy and written by McCarthy and Josh Singer. The film follows The Boston Globe's "Spotlight" team, the oldest continuously operating newspaper investigative journalist unit in the United States, and its investigation into cases of widespread and systemic child sex abuse in the Boston area by numerous Catholic priests. Although the plot was original, it is loosely based on a series of stories by the Spotlight team that earned The Globe the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. The film features an ensemble cast including Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Brian d'Arcy James, Liev Schreiber, and Billy Crudup.
Kids Can Say No!, stylized as Kids Can Say No, is a 1985 British short educational film produced and directed by Jessica Skippon and written by Anita Bennett. It is intended to teach children between ages five and eight how to avoid situations where they might be sexually abused, how to escape such situations, and how to get help if they are abused. In the film, Australian celebrity Rolf Harris is in a park with a group of four children and tells them about proper and improper physical intimacy, which he calls "yes" and "no" feelings. The film has four role-playing scenes in which children encounter paedophiles, with Harris and the children discussing each scene.
Sara West is an Australian actress, director and screen writer. She began her career with roles in short films and television roles. Her 2015 role as Liza Minnelli in television series Peter Allen: Not the Boy Next Door earned her a Logie Award nomination for Most Outstanding Newcomer. In 2017, West played Lyndal in the film, Don't Tell and was nominated for an AACTA Award. She also appeared in the main roles of the 2016 film Bad Girl, as Amy Anderson and the 2019 film, Awoken playing the medical student Karla. She also plays Brooke in ABC TV drama series Troppo. In 2023, West joined the cast of the soap opera Neighbours, playing Cara Varga-Murphy. West also writes and directs films and has won awards at the 2014 and 2018 South Australian Screen Awards.
