The Church has no “definite policy” on whether to give financial compensation to victims of sexual abuse by priests.

“This is the first time that the Church in Malta is facing such a situation and as yet there exists no definite policy,” a spokesman for the Curia said yesterday.

The Curia was asked to react to the call by the Vatican’s promoter of justice, Mgr Charles Scicluna, for the Church to be proactive and offer psychological and financial compensation beyond demands of the law. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mgr Scicluna also encouraged the victim’s lawyer to “ask for damages in the civil courts”.

Lawrence Grech, one of the 11 victims who were abused by priests and a brother they were in the care of, said he would take any options provided by law.

“I’ll speak to my lawyers, and if there’s an option, I will take it. We are no different from other victims abroad. If there is an option in Malta, we’ll take it. We’re not an exception,” Mr Grech said.

Similarly, Joseph Magro, another victim, said it depended on what the lawyer said.

“We were abused like other victims were abused abroad. The same things happened to us. We expect that we should be treated in the same way they were treated. But I’m not going to be running after them for money, it should be a gesture on their behalf,” Mr Magro said yesterday.

Asked what the Church was doing to improve the way possible victims of abuse would be dealt with, the Curia’s spokesman said the Archdiocese and the Major Religious Superiors had gone through an evaluation of the whole process of investigation.

“Obviously the approval of the Vatican authorities is needed before bringing about these changes,” the spokesman said.

This statement comes in the wake of Mgr Scicluna’s criticism of the current system, which is blamed for delaying justice for the 11 men. He said the response team was doing more than it had to, as it was pronouncing people guilty or innocent when all it had to do was “declare whether there were grounds to proceed on the claims”.

The men are also hurt because the Missionary Society of Saint Paul, which brought them up, have not contacted them once since the reports of the abuse surfaced.

“We were never approached by the MSSP. This is a hurt – we were brought up by them, and they never spoke to us (since the reports were first made),” Mr Magro said. He said Archbishop Paul Cremona had “done a lot” in that regard but they were disappointed they had heard nothing from the order.

“They didn’t contact us... they had eight whole years to contact us,” Mr Grech said.

The MSSP’s general superior could not be reached for comment yesterday but the Curia said the MSSP had offered psychological assistance to the victims from the “very first day”.

However, the order also shouldered the financial cost of the top criminal lawyers, Giannella Caruana Curran and Joe Giglio, who defended the priests.

Regional Superior Louis Mallia last week told The Times that it was the order that had to foot the bill.

“We have nothing of our own, these people don’t have a pay; they don’t have anything of their own,” Fr Mallia said.

“I don’t know how much it cost us. They had the right to be defended like anyone else; but it is not true we were ready to pay whatever it took to get them freed,” he said.