Gail Furness The shocking extent of alleged clerical sexual abuse in Australia has been revealed for the first time to the commission established to investigate such cases.
Undertaking its work since 2013, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard on Monday last, during a sitting in Sydney, that 7% of Catholic priests in Australia have faced allegations of abuse between 1950 and 2015. In a survey of Catholic institutions, investigators found that, between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 people had alleged abuse.
The average ages of those involved are reported to be 10 for girls and 11 for boys.
Investigation
The investigation found that over 1,000 Catholic institutions across Australia were implicated in cases of abuse, and of 1,880 people identified as abusers within them, 572 were priests.
The commission was presented with numbers of claims against 10 individual religious orders, including the St John of God Brothers which was alleged to have just over 40% of abusive members, the worst single figure. This was followed by the Christian Brothers, at 22%, the Salesians of Don Bosco, with just under 22% and the Marist Brothers at just over 20%.
Presenting the figures, lead lawyer Gail Furness described a pattern of behaviour accompanying abuse allegations.
“Children were ignored or worse, punished,” she said. “Allegations were not investigated. Priests and religious were moved. The parishes or communities to which they were moved knew nothing of their past.” Further, she said: “Documents were not kept, or they were destroyed. Secrecy prevailed as did cover-ups.”
At Vatican level, meanwhile, Furness revealed that requests for documentation as to the actions taken against abuse priests and religious were turned down, their delivery being described as “neither possible nor appropriate”.
The numerical revelations came as senior leaders from the Catholic Church in Australia prepared to face the Royal Commission. The Archbishops of Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra Colbourn, Melbourne and Perth were scheduled by the commission to attend in person.
Ahead of his appearance, Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane issued a video message to his parishes in which he warned there were “shocks [and] grim moments” ahead.
Meanwhile, reacting to the statistical findings, Francis Sullivan, head of the Church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council, which was established directly in response to the abuse scandal described the findings as “indefensible”.
“It’s a miserable tale, you can’t put a coating on it, it speaks of so much damage, it’s heartbreaking,” he said. “As Catholics, we hang our heads in shame.”