Still Standing

'This is a book about love. A mother's love of her daughters. A crusader's love of truth and justice. A champion's love of the community she serves. Love explains why Chrissie is still standing and it is a privilege to read her story and learn from her example.' - The Hon Julia Gillard AC

There are few more moving experiences than for the silenced to be heard.

Chrissie Foster is the mother who brought the rich and powerful Catholic Church to its knees over its global abuse of children, including two of her daughters, Emma and Katie. Like the Boston Globe's Spotlight team, she built an undeniable case in her first book, Hell on the Way to Heaven, which helped inspire Australian governments to hold world-leading inquiries.

This is what happened next.

Grieving the death of Emma and the catastrophic accident that left Katie largely using a wheelchair and unable to care for herself, and bullied by the Catholic Church, Chrissie Foster somehow found the strength to win and bring about changes in child safety that she hopes will last forever. From the cities and towns of Australia all the way to Rome, her tenacity and bravery to see justice delivered are unequalled. In this confronting account she explains the incredible battle she fought together with her husband, Anthony, and how she found the strength to continue even after his tragic and untimely death.

Her ongoing activism inspires others to challenge once-powerful male-dominated institutions. In the face of horrifying adversity, Chrissie Foster has come through it to a place of peace.

About the Authors

Chrissie Foster was born in Victoria and grew up in Black Rock, a beachside suburb on Port Phillip Bay. She worked as a public servant for nine years, during which time she travelled extensively around Europe, the US and Mexico. She married Anthony in 1980 and by 1985 they had three beautiful daughters, Emma, Katie and Aimee, whom they raised in suburban Melbourne with what they hoped were the right values. Chrissie could not have known that the stranger-danger she feared actually lurked in the presbytery attached to the girls’ Catholic primary school, with both Emma and Katie victims of clergy sex abuse. Chrissie’s heartbreaking account of her family’s suffering – and of the Church’s lies, silence, denials and threats – Hell on the Way to Heaven, was published in 2010. The Foster family’s case was one of those that prompted the establishment of the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations and the subsequent Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Chrissie has since continued to fight for justice and redress for victims and survivors of child sexual assault by Catholic clergy. In 2018 she jointly won the Australian Human Rights Medal with Chief Royal Commissioner Hon Peter McClellan. Then, in 2019, Chrissie was named in the Australian Honours List as a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) ‘For significant service to children, particularly as an advocate for those who have suffered sexual abuse'. Her ongoing activism inspires others to challenge once-powerful male-dominated institutions.

Paul Kennedy is a national television presenter for ABC News Breakfast. He has worked for three television networks and has written three books, including co-authoring Hell on the Way to Heaven (with Chrissie Foster), one of the triggers for Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He lives on the eastern shore of Port Phillip with his wife, Kim, and their three sons, Jack, Gus and Leo.