Author: Maria Harries

Maria Harries

Member of the Truth Justice and Healing Council, Professor Maria Harries AM, is Adjunct Professor at Curtin University and a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in Social Work and Social Policy in the School of Population Health at The University of Western Australia. She is Chair of Catholic Social Services Australia. Her career has been dedicated to assisting children and families, particularly in relation to mental health and trauma associated with experiences of abuse and violence.

Articles by Maria Harries

Aurora

Keeping the faith and healing those who hurt

May 04, 2016 Comments

Maria Harries

Recently I remarked on the “extra special care” we need to show for each other as we react to the landscape of sexual abuse that has been heightened since the commencement of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RC). Aurora has invited me to consider how this might be done, attitudinally and practically. Finding answers is much tougher than acknowledging a need! All of us, but particularly those in Church communities, so close to the intensity of clerical abuse and individual and public pain, are reeling. Initially, it seemed impossible to believe − now it seems impossible to know what to do.