AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
BY JOANNE MCCARTHY
16 Aug, 2012
A crusading American Catholic priest has urged the Hunter Region to “do all you can to get a royal commission” into the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse.
Dominican Order priest and canon law expert Father Tom Doyle joined Hunter civic leaders yesterday in backing a royal commission, and criticising politicians for their timidity on the issue.
“In the US the grand juries are the equivalent of royal commissions and in Ireland the statutory commissions are the equivalent,” Father Doyle said.
“They have proven to be the best way to get at the truth.”
Governments had to act because in the past 30 years the only change within the church had been the result of “media exposure, public outrage and pressure from the civil court system. What the institutional Church has done, it was forced to do.”
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