AUSTRALIA
The Guardian – Communist Party of Australia

Editorial

Hopes of the faithful that Francis would be a reforming Pope have received a heavy blow. The Vatican responded angrily to a UN report on child sexual abuse by priests, claiming that it is “prejudiced” against the Catholic Church and that it peddles attacks made by anti-Catholic advocacy groups. But while the Catholic Church features heavily in revelations of cover-up and protection of serial offenders, it is far from the only organisation to which children are entrusted to be accused of failing miserably to protect them from sexual predators. The Catholic Church’s claim of a witch hunt doesn’t stack up.

Australia is getting disturbing insights into the extent of the horrors via the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It was revealed two weeks ago that boys at the Bexley Boys Home in Sydney were routinely beaten,…