AUSTRALIA
ABC Ballarat
December 18, 2017
By Charlotte King
Catholics in the Victorian town of Ballarat — referred to as an epicentre of child sexual abuse — say the church must accept grassroots involvement from parishioners to enact changes recommended by the royal commission.
The Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse issued a damning report about the Ballarat Catholic Diocese earlier this month, describing its handling of clergy child sex abuse as a “catastrophic failure of leadership”.
The Commission’s final report, released on Friday, also called for sweeping reforms for the Catholic church including that bishops draw upon advice from lay people in relation to the admission of individuals to the priesthood.
In a statement, Pope Francis said the findings “deserve to be studied in depth” while the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, said the church would seriously consider all of the royal commission’s 189 new recommendations, but rejected calls for priests to be forced to break the seal of confessional.
The Ballarat Catholic Diocese said it was open to a recommendation that would see parish priests stripped of their power over schools.
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