Bring Sex Abuse "Wall of Silence" down

Courier Mail
August 31, 2012

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/bring-sex-abuse-wall-of-silence-down/story-e6freono-1226462260286

PROSECUTING individual priests won't uncover enough information about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, NSW MP David Shoebridge says.

The Greens' justice spokesman has renewed his calls for a royal commission into sexual abuse in the church after an elderly Catholic priest was on Thursday charged with committing and covering up child sex offences near Newcastle in the 1970s and 80s.

The charges include one count of failing to report the sexual abuse by another priest on a child at a school where he was principal in 1978.

The priest also faces 10 sexual assault offences at a church in Waratah in 1984 and 1985.

Mr Shoebridge still believes a royal commission is needed to compel church officials to produce documents and give testimony about historical crimes committed by clergy.

"We are slowly seeing the wall of silence that the church has built to protect serial child sexual predators within its organisation being broken down," he said on Friday.

"One-off prosecutions against single priests will never be able to fully uncover what has gone so badly wrong within the church over decades in relation to child sexual abuse."

The elderly priest has been bailed to appear in Newcastle Local Court on September 25.