AUSTRALIA
On Line Opinion
By Brendan O’Reilly – posted Monday, 3 April 2017
This . . . can only be interpreted for what it is: a massive failure on the part the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers and predators, a misguided determination by leaders at the time to put the interests of the Church ahead of the most vulnerable and, a corruption of the Gospel the Church seeks to profess. As Catholics we hang our heads in shame . Frances Sullivan, CEO, (Catholic) Truth, Justice and Healing Council.
A key official report for one Catholic diocese found that:
the diocese’s preoccupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities ……and (the diocese) did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State”. The report concluded that there is “no doubt that clerical child sexual abuse was covered up.
So which Catholic diocese do you think the report related to? Ballarat? Newcastle? Sydney?
No. The extracts come from the Murphy Commission’s report into child sex abuse within the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin released in 2009. Investigations into clerical sexual abuse of Catholic children in the US came up with broadly similar conclusions, and you don’t need to be Nostradamus to foresee that Australia’s Royal Commission is going to come up with much the same findings. The similarity in the Catholic Church’s behaviour across countries stands out, and suggests a systemic problem along with an organised cover-up world-wide.
At the request of the Royal Commission, the Australian Catholic Church has released survey data revealing that 7% of priests, working between 1950 and 2009, have been accused of child sex crimes. The figures were even higher for some orders of religious brothers: 40% for the Brothers of St John of God, 22% for the Christian Brothers, and 20% for the Marist Brothers.
Between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 alleged incidents of child sexual abuse relating to 93 Catholic Church authorities in Australia were reported. The average age of victims was 10.5 for girls and 11.6 for boys, and (notably) the overwhelming majority were male.
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