AUSTRALIA
The Tablet

15 November 2013 by Mark Brolly

The Catholic Church’s institutions, schools and parishes gave perpetrators the opportunity to exploit vulnerable children in their care for decades and its early response to child abuse in its ranks “continued to conceal rather than expose criminal child abuse in the organisation”, a Victorian parliamentary report has found.

Betrayal of Trust, the report of the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations by Parliament’s Family and Community Development Committee, said there had been “substantial criminal child abuse” in the Church over a long period of time, perpetrated by priests and other members of religious orders in Victoria.

“A culture existed in religious organisations that allowed for the occurrence of systemic criminal child abuse,” it said.

“The initial formal response to criminal child abuse that the Catholic Church in Victoria and in Australia more broadly…