AUSTRALIA
Daily Advertiser
Ken Grimson
21 Feb 2017
THE priest in charge of one of the largest parishes in the Catholic Church’s Wagga Diocese has backed calls for lasting cultural change within the faith following the release of alarming figures revealing the extent of child sex abuse within the church.
Reverend Father Paddy Sykes, South Wagga parish priest, published the statistics under the heading “grim data” in his parish newsletter last weekend.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse said between January, 1980, and February, 2015, 4444 people made allegations of child sexual abuse to 93 Catholic Church authorities in Australia.
A total of 1880 alleged perpetrators were identified, of which 32 per cent were religious brothers, 30 per cent were priests, 29 per cent were lay people and 5 per cent were religious sisters.
“As terrible as those figures are, there are probably more (victims),” Fr Sykes said.
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