NSW Catholic MP Catherine Cusack has slammed the “male hierarchy” of the church for “trashing” people’s faith because of the child sexual abuse tragedy, in a speech to Parliament backing a Hunter abuse survivor.

The sexual abuse of children and the church’s cover-ups of that abuse were “a total failure of everything we were told our church stood for”, Ms Cusack said in a speech on Wednesday after petitioning Attorney-General Mark Speakman on behalf of Hunter survivor Rob Roseworne.

“Everything I was literally taught from birth was trashed by the evidence (at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse).”

Ms Cusack said it was inconceivable, but irrefutable, “that those in authority receiving these reports (of child sexual abuse allegations) were turning a blind eye and were more concerned about protecting church assets than the care of young children entrusted to them”.

“There are no words to describe the feelings the work of the royal commission invoked in us and all Australians,” Ms Cusack said.

“I wonder if the male hierarchy of the Catholic Church, so determined to maintain their hegemony even in the face of the ultimate crimes against their own faith, has even begun to come to grips with this utter sense of anger and disgust.

“It has taken so much time for those in positions of power to acknowledge that this is not some legal problem. It is a total failure of everything we were told our Church stood for.

It has taken so much time for those in positions of power to acknowledge that this is not some legal problem. It is a total failure of everything we were told our Church stood for.

NSW Catholic MP Catherine Cusack about the child sexual abuse tragedy.

“The betrayal is of course most appalling for victims but the Church needs to understand it has been a betrayal of all of us.”

Mr Roseworne has sought a review of a NSW Director of Public Prosecutions decision in 2013 not to prosecute one of the state’s most senior Catholic educators for concealing child sex crimes.

The DPP advised police that charging the former NSW Catholic Schools Commission member and Christian Brother Anthony Whelan, 77, was “not in the public interest”, despite noting “there would appear to be a prima facie case” over his handling of allegations against teacher Thomas Keady in the 1970s.

Mr Roseworne received substantial compensation after a Catholic Church investigation found he had been sexually abused by Keady. Brother Whelan allowed Keady to resign from a Catholic school in the 1970s after four boys alleged they had been sexually abused by Keady, who went on to commit further offences.

Ms Cusack told Parliament the DPP’s statement that it was not in the public interest to charge Brother Whelan was “very troubling”, and the reasons given – the “relatively low level of criminality” and “the staleness of the alleged offences” – did not reflect community attitudes.

Ms Cusack thanked Mr Speakman for his “prompt, compassionate and appropriate response” in referring the request for a review to the DPP.

“The hurdles to justice faced by victims are tarting to fall and all of us have a role and a duty to ease their horrific journey as best we can,” Ms Cusack said.

“I await the review of the DPP, which is far more informed and empowered today than it was at the time of those offences. Justice has been shockingly delayed but that does not follow that it will be denied.”

Ms Cusack acknowledged Mr Roseworne’s determination to have the case reviewed.