Catholic Orders Accused of Child Sex Abuse ‘are Dying’

By Dan Box
The Australian
February 23, 2017

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The leaders of several major Catholic orders found to contain disproportionately high numbers of child abusers say the ­organisations are dying as their members grow old and few, if any, seek to replace them.

These orders have run dozens of schools, orphanages and other institutions across Australia, and been subject to thousands of allegations of child abuse, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

The Christian Brothers, a fifth of whose members were alleged child abusers between 1950 and 2010, now have an average age of 75 and no one has attempted to join the order since the mid-2000s, the commission heard yesterday.

The Marist Brothers, which runs 13 schools across Australia and had a similar proportion of its members alleged to be abusers over that time, now has an ­average age of 73 and “a trickle” of candidates for new positions.

The St John of God Brothers, 40 per cent of whom were ­alleged abusers, now have 19 members, most in their 70s and 80s, and are “effectively winding down in Australia”, their provincial leader, Timothy Graham, told the commission yesterday.