Four Corners: Christian Brothers Inc airs tonight on ABC, investigating the Christian Brothers as the Catholic order faces more than 300 active sexual abuse claims and warns victim-survivors it is on the brink of insolvency.
The episode examines a major national accountability question: how compensation can be pursued when an institution with deep historical reach says it may not be able to pay.
The Christian Brothers educated children in Australia for more than a century. In 2007, the order set up a separate entity to run its schools, and from 2013 it transferred school properties worth hundreds of millions of dollars to that organisation for nominal sums.
The recipient, the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia, now runs 61 Christian Brothers schools and educates 44,000 students across the country.
Four Corners investigates claims that the order has adopted strategies to avoid paying compensation to vulnerable victims of child sexual abuse. Lawyers for victim-survivors have turned to Edmund Rice Education Australia to defend claims and pay liabilities on behalf of the Christian Brothers.
The program includes the first television interview with the Chair of the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia since the crisis erupted. He gives his account of when the schools body learned about the Brothers’ financial position, how it will respond to victim-survivors and the future of its relationship with the religious order.
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When to watch Four Corners
Four Corners: Christian Brothers Inc airs tonight, Monday 7 September, at 8.30pm on ABC. The episode will also be available on ABC iview.
For more ABC coverage, visit TV Central’s ABC section.
