Catholic Church cops major blow in abuse victim legal battles

Eight years after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse released its findings, the Catholic Church is still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal battles aimed at preventing payments to survivors.

High Court of Australia yesterday stripped It is one of the last defenses available to the Church in its decades-long effort to protect its vast fortune from victims of sexual abuse, mainly carried out by pedophile priests.

The landmark ruling by the country’s highest court confirmed that five to two judges ruled in favor of the applicant, known as AA, and confirmed that the Catholic Church has a duty to protect people in its care from harm, and this includes sexual abuse.