AUSTRALIA
Rappler
BY MARTIN PARRY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
POSTED ON 11/13/2013
SYDNEY, Australia – An Australian state inquiry into the handling of child sex cases by the Catholic Church on Wednesday, November 13, said religious leaders trivialized the problem and recommended concealment of abuse should be a crime.
Its report tabled in the Victorian parliament follows a long-running probe and concluded that “we can reasonably estimate that there have been several thousand victims criminally abused in non-government organizations in Victoria alone”.
The most senior Catholic in Victoria, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, previously admitted to the hearing that the Church had been too slow to act on pedophile priests, but insisted things had changed.
The report, “Betrayal of Trust”, said failure to report serious child abuse should lead to prosecution, a move likely to conflict with the church’s insistence that information gathered in the confessional should remain secret.
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