Archbishop Says Child Abuse Response Appalling, ‘Kind Of Criminal Negligence’

AUSTRALIA
Huffington Post

Eoin Blackwell Senior Associate Editor, HuffPost Australia

The Catholic Archbishop of Sydney has told a Royal Commission the response by church leaders to abuse allegations by children amounted to “criminal negligence”.

On Thursday the archbishops of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth appeared before the sex abuse Royal Commission to give evidence on what the Church is doing to address its decades long failure to protect children.

The archbishops were asked by Counsel assisting, Gail Furness, if a failure of leadership was responsible for abuse in the church.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said a stronger term might be used.

“That it was a kind of criminal negligence to deal with some of the problems that were staring us in the face,” he said

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