NEW ZEALAND
Otago Daily Times
David Tombs compares the Catholic Church’s recent responses to allegations of sexual abuse in Australia and in Peru.
Two documents released last week on sexual abuses in the Catholic Church in Australia and in Peru seem to show very different responses to the problem of historical sexual abuses. The Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was formally established in 2013, and it has been examining abuse by Catholic clergy and the responses of various Catholic authorities. Its report, titled “Proportion of priests and non-ordained religious subject to a claim of child sexual abuse 1950-2010” (February 2017), gives a clear sense of the scale.
The report concludes that between 1980 and 2015, there were 4444 alleged incidents of child sexual abuse in more than 1000 institutions. A total of 1880 alleged perpetrators (diocesan and religious priests, religious brothers, religious sisters, lay employees or volunteers) were identified in claims of child sexual abuse.
The figures suggest about 30% of alleged perpetrators were priests, 32% were religious brothers, 29% were lay people, 5% were religious sisters, and for 4% the religious status was not known. The total proportion of priests ministering in Australia who have been alleged as perpetrators of sexual abuse since 1950 is 7%.
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