AUSTRALIA
news.com.au
FEBRUARY 21, 2017
Rebekah Ison
Australian Associated Press
The bishop of Parramatta has made an impassioned plea for the Catholic Church to become less “elitist” while revealing he was sexually abused by clergy himself.
Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen was applauded during his evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Tuesday.
Survivors of sex abuse and their loved ones approached afterwards and some cried as they spoke with him.
“I was also a victim of sexual abuse by clergy when I first came to Australia, even though I was an adult,” the former refugee said towards the end of his testimony in Sydney.
“That had a powerful impact on me and how I want to … walk in the shoes of other victims and really endeavour to attain justice and dignity for them.”
Bishop Long, who is the first Australian bishop of Vietnamese background, said titles, privileges and the church’s institutional dynamics “breed clerical superiority and elitism”.
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