AUSTRALIA
The Age
Editorial
Our nation is going through heartbreak. The data emerging from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse distils tragedy and crime that all but defies belief and can leave no rational person other than wrenched with grief and fury.
Before we ventilate some of that data, which was revealed on Monday as the royal commission resumed hearings that have been running for more than three years, we would like to pay profound respect to survivors who have shown such courage by speaking out. Their harrowing testimony will surely limit – and hopefully eradicate – the widespread sexual abuse of children by people within institutions.
The figures show the worst offender has been the Catholic Church, the focus of as many as 16 of the commission’s 50 hearings so far. The sheer number of paedophiles in its ranks – monstrous criminals it has finally admitted were in many instances protected by the church hierarchy – is damning.
As is the complicity and cover-up it has admitted, after years of external pressure – particularly during the royal commission – of shielding and shifting perpetrators. The punishing and tormenting that many of the children who sought to denounce the rapists faced is also unforgivable.
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