Australian abuse report calls for end to sanctity of confession

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Australia should introduce a law forcing religious leaders to report child abuse, including Catholic priests told of abuse in the confessional, said a report on Friday which detailed institutional abuse, particularly in the Catholic Church.

The 17-volume document from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse marks the end of one of the world’s biggest inquiries into child abuse and leaves it to the government to decide whether to enact its recommendations.

The five-year investigation found “multiple and persistent failings of institutions to keep children safe, the cultures of secrecy and cover-up, and the devastating affects child sexual abuse can have on an individual’s life,” the commission said in a statement.

Commissioner Justice Peter McClellan and the Governor-General of Australia Peter Cosgrove at the signing ceremony and the release of the final report of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Canberra, Australia, December 15, 2017. /Reuters Photo

The report detailed tens of thousands of child victims, saying their abusers were “not a case of a few rotten apples.”

“We will never know the true number,” it read.

The inquiry spanned religious, government, educational and professional organizations but heard many accounts alleging abuse cover-ups in the Australian Catholic Church, including allegations of moving priests suspected of abuse between parishes to avoid detection.

Of survivors who reported abuse in religious institutions, more than 60 percent cited the Catholic Church, which demonstrated “catastrophic failures of leadership,” particularly before the 1990s, the report said.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the inquiry had “exposed a national tragedy” and that the government would consider the recommendations and respond in full next year.

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Source(s): Reuters