AUSTRALIA
North Queensland Register
BARNEY ZWARTZ
The state government’s eagerly awaited report on clergy child sex abuse recommends sweeping changes to laws behind which the Catholic Church has sheltered, and accused its leaders of trivialising the problem as a ‘‘short-term embarrassment’’.
Launching the report in State Parliament, inquiry chairwoman Georgie Crozier spoke of ‘‘a betrayal beyond comprehension’’ and children suffering ‘‘unimaginable harm’’.
She said the inquiry had referred 135 previously unreported claims of child sex abuse to the police.
The report into how the churches handled clergy sexual abuse wants to establish a new crime for people in authority knowingly to put a child a risk, and to make it a crime not to report suspected child abuse or to leave a child at risk, which apparently includes what priests hear in the confessional.
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