Archbishop admits 'spectacular bungling' of child abuse case Archbishop of Brisbane Mark Coleridge says the church was desperate for a way to handle abuse complaints. The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane has admitted to "spectacular bungling" and "drastic failure" in dealing with a child sex abuse victim and flagged his willingness to revisit cases where victims' needs have not been met. In the strongest statements of condemnation yet by a senior Australian Catholic Church official of the church's handling of sex abuse claims, Archbishop Mark Coleridge said a "tsunami" of child sexual abuse allegations had caught bishops and other officials "like rabbits in a headlight." "If we are serious about coming to the aid of victims, we would have to explore other ways" of dealing with their complaints than the Towards Healing protocol used since 1997, he told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Bishops and other church figures "didn't know how to respond" to child sex abuse allegations, so when lawyers and insurers came forward with seeming solutions, "they breathed a sigh of relief and said 'Yes, that is right.'" The royal commission has been examining the experiences of Joan Isaacs, who was sexually abused from age 14 by the chaplain of her Brisbane convent school in the late 1960s. Her treatment when she approached the church for an apology, counselling and compensation under its Towards Healing process in 1999 was dictated by lawyers and insurers and was akin to renewed abuse, the commission has heard. She received a reparation payment of $30,000. Archbishop Coleridge said the handling of Mrs Isaacs case was "totally unacceptable" and represented a failure of oversight by the archbishop at the time. He did not name him, but his predecessor was Archbishop John Bathersby. Archbishop Coleridge said powerful cultural factors had converged to create a "perfect storm" of child sexual abuse within the church. One factor was the "absurd" lack of training in the past for would-be priests about human and sexual relationships. "We have reaped the harvest of horror of that," he said. The Brisbane archdiocese has had 99 cases of child sex abuse and nine current matters, with $2.5 million in payments made to victims. The archbishop said he was surprised the payout figure was not greater. A succession of church officials have dodged repeated questioning by commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan over whether the church as a whole should bear responsibility and liability for the criminal actions of its individual employees. But Archbishop Coleridge said "there is communable culpability insofar as there are cultural factors ... It really does make sense to talk about some kind of communal or vicarious responsibility or even liability. He said he hoped for an independent national scheme or fund to which all elements of the church would contribute, and "those dioceses that are better resourced or wealthier would help the poorer dioceses or religious orders" to contribute as necessary. The church has admitted it has no data to back its opening statement to the royal commission that "for many people Towards Healing has been a source of compassion and support which has been of real value to them." Justice McClellan asked Peter Gray, SC, appearing for the church whether any data to support that assertion exists. "I don't believe so," he said.