AUSTRALIA
Eureka Street

Moira Rayner | 13 December 2015

Lord Acton said that ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ It was in correspondence about the then pope’s proposed new doctrine of papal infallibility. It is often overlooked that he added, ‘Great men are almost always bad men, even when they exercise influence and not authority; still more when you superadd the tendency of the certainty of corruption by authority.’

Dr Kathleen McChesney with Truth, Justice and Healing Council CEO Francis SullivanWhen I was a child, the greatest misuse of priestly power imputed to the ‘RCs’ was the sometimes brutal violence used in the ‘care’ of disobedient pupils, unmarried mothers, illegitimate and ‘removed’ children and orphans in institutions run by nuns, brothers and priests.

Thanks to brave individuals and independent journalists, the sexual abuse permitted and distributed by some of these hands has been revealed in Australian…