The ABC has commissioned the team behind award winning documentary’s The Killing Season and Hitting Home to produce a compelling new documentary series focused on the Catholic Church.
The three-part documentary series Revelation will see 4 Corners host Sarah Ferguson investigate the forces behind child abuse inside the Catholic Church and the extraordinary cover-up that took place.
After years of resistance, The Royal Commission finally broke the silence of the Catholic Church and unveiled the legacy of abuse of those in its care. In Revelation, Sarah Ferguson will piece together the forces at play in one of the most profound stories in Australia’s history and the extraordinary drama that brought it to light.
The project will re-unite the experienced, multi-award winning creative team including Gold Walkley-winning journalist Sarah Ferguson (Trump/Russia), director Deborah Masters (The Killing Season), and In Films producer Nial Fulton (Hitting Home) and executive producer Ivan O’Mahoney (The Queen & Zak Grieve).
The project has been commissioned by ABC Head of Factual Steve Bibb, with additional funding supplied by Screen Australia.
Revelation is expected to premiere on ABCTV in mid-2019
I just hope Sarah reaches out to people like myself who have been crushed almost out of existence by the Catholic Church for more than SEVENTY YEARS!!! Still no acknowledgement by the "Mercy" Nuns as to the inexcusable violent abuses inflicted on children in their "care" under the auspices of the Catholic Church.
The Mercy Nuns who brutalised me and my sister and thousands of helpless girls and boys, STILL will NOT acknowledge the responsibility they have to acknowledge the part they played in preventing me
and others telling the TRUE stories of what the Nuns did even to this day.- making pacts with proposed TV productions to exclude anything that even hints of historical Child Sexual Abuse and other horrific abuses. Even to the point of refusing to allow the Orphanage itself to be "portrayed
as a house of horrors". Please don’t let it be a documentary totally disconnected from the everlasting destruction these people have inflicted on all of us who fell into the hands of the all-powerful, and seemingly protected by other very powerful people, Catholic Church.
WOW!!! I cannot die before I can see this documentary!
The institutions associated with the Catholic church reach far and wide, like a demented, sick octopus….Too many organisations were afraid to go against such a powerful and wealthy religion. I was naive enough to ask for an apology back in May 2012…. still trying to come to terms with the response. Thank god for Gillard, certain policemen, journalists, child minders and authors who dared try to expose the cancer within and thank god for Sarah Ferguson and the like….. Can’t wait to see the doco….
I hope survivors are not forgotten in this and they have their voice. It’s about time it is all out there and survivors voices are heard. RISN (Residential institutional survivors Network) led by survivors for survivors. Tel: 353 (0) 85 2574737 or e-mail [email protected]
if you want to understand child sexual abuse by children you need to include at least the interplay that clergy sexual activity and misconduct with adults plays in the overall picture. This 3 part series cannot afford to miss this vital aspect. As one notorious paedophile said: "I’m not worried about what the Bishops can do to me because of what I know about the bishops". Richard Sipe warned about the interplay between clergy child sexual abuse and general clergy sexual activity and misconduct with adults and how these have influenced the lack of action and covering up of child abuse which led to further abuse. http://www.awrsipe.com/Docs_and_Controversy/blackmail.html . To ignore this connection is to miss the mark. I hope this doco does not miss that mark like almost everyone else has to this point. The thing is, clergy misconduct with adults is far less ‘popular’ to investigate because people are under the misapprehension that such ‘activity’ is sort of OK. It’s not. See my research here https://eprints.qut.edu.au/96038/ . Please Sarah, do not leave this aspect out. Investigate it and you will find a whole new world of intrigue and horror yet to be uncovered. They’re just now starting to realise it in the USA.
A recent article by Award winning Joanne McCarthy presented this issue clearly and troublingly in the following article. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/i-was-a-sitting-duck-woman-groomed-for-sex-by-head-of-catholic-order-says-it-s-time-to-speak-up-20180921-p5055q.html . It is a disturbing issue in its own right but when it is connected to the broader picture of clergy sexual abuse the pieces fall in place.
The following is from an article by myself and co written by Dr Jodi Death of QUT. I am currently doing my PhD on church responses to victims/survivors who self- report CSMAA and how they are treated.:
The need for more research focusing specifically on clergy sexual misconduct against adults (CSMAA) and its many expressions is obvious. Furthermore, this paucity of research is concerning given that in 1994 clergy psychotherapist and former priest, Richard Sipe, estimated that:
sexual abuse of minors is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the
violation of professional boundaries by clergy. Four times as many priests
involve themselves sexually with adult women, and twice the number with
adult men, as priests who involve themselves sexually with children (Sipe
1994: 134; 1995; see also Royal Commission 2017: 25270, line 32).
Sipe’s 1995 therapy-based estimation has been supported by other researchers as attested by the following summarising statement from the John Jay Report (The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States):
Haywood and Green provided an overview of the literature pertaining to
prevalence, offense/victim characteristics, and evaluation of cleric serial
offenders. Depending upon the study, prevalence rates ranged from 2% to
6% (pedophiliac and ephebophiliac clerics), 20% to 40% (sexual misconduct
with adults), 8.4% (in a sample of 1322), and 5.8% to 24%
(boundary violations with adults)… In examining offense/victim characteristics,
the authors concluded that clerics are more likely to engage in
sexual misconduct with adults than minors (John Jay Report 2004: 258).
However, even with all this expert evidence, the reality of CSMAA and its impact on victims remains, for the most, troublingly under-acknowledged by the RCC, particularly in Australia.
Please Sarah, (ABC) include how this issue intersects with the abuse of children and its covering up, discuss it with Joanne McCarthy and myself.
Thank you.
Yes certainly hope victims/survivors are not left out. The church is sanctimoniously saying they have everything in place to prevent child sexual abuse ever happening again!! whilst still treating victims and their families appallingly. Elderly parents are now going to their graves wonďering what on earth will happen to their middle-aged, ill, homeless and unemployable children when they are no longer able to be there for them. When the church very humbly changes it’s focus to be all about rehabilitating victims/survivors and their families "sorry" may have a little merit.
x
Make sure Revelation examines case study 44. John Farrell. Interview Farrell in gaol for full story.
How do I become a part of this production?? I’d like to be involved as a survivor please.
Hi everyone – I’m one of the Editors here at DeciderTV.com.
We have no connection to the ABC or Sarah Ferguson. If you would like to share information with her about your story for this investigation, I encourage you to contact the ABC in Sydney (their main office is in Ultimo).
I am sorry that any of you have experienced any hurt in your past because of people connected to the church. That is wrong and I am deeply saddened that this has been your experience. I hope you have been/are able to find healing.
How to contact her?