Victorian inquiry into child abuse by religious organisations continues

 

The Victorian Parliament’s Family and Community Development Committee Inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations continues, with hearings scheduled for 9,12,23,and 26 November 2012

 

This was Professor Chris Goddard from Child Abuse Prevention Research Australia for Monash University giving evidence before the Inquiry in Melbourne on 19 October 2012:

 

I have, however, a firm opinion that the abuse of children and young people in religious organisations is truly diabolical because of the lasting and terrible spiritual damage. This is supported by the literature. The abuse of children by adults always rests on a power imbalance. The large number of offences by Catholic priests reflects an extraordinary power imbalance. The religious authority they possess allows them even to turn parents and families against their own children. This has meant that many victims have had to attempt to deal with the abuse on their own, magnifying the impacts.

 

It is important to recognise that child-sex offenders are extremely cunning. Priests have used their positions to infiltrate families and gain access to children. They have used their knowledge of the families and the families’ strengths and weaknesses to gain access to the most vulnerable children. This is one of the major  reasons I believe there has been and continues to be such a long time period between offences being committed and reporting. Then of course when reports are made the Catholic Church in particular has

shown that defending itself is more important than defending the victims. The impact on children, thus, is catastrophic. They are betrayed many times. They are betrayed by the priest or priests. In some cases that I know of they feel they have been betrayed by their families who had difficulty believing them. In some terrible cases the parents of victims have gone to their graves believing the church, not their children. In many cases they have been betrayed by the church’s responses, as I have had said.

 

Professor Des Cahill, Professor of Intercultural Studies at RMIT University giving evidence before the Inquiry on 22 October 2012:

 

Mr McGUIRE — Thank you, Professor, for that multifaith overview and then coming down to the particular concerns you raised about the Catholic Church. I would just like to pick you up on the issue of prevalence. Your report at page 16 calculates the prevalence of clerical sexual abuse as between the 4 to 6 per cent range, which by implication is that about 1 in 20 ordained diocesan priests in Victoria and Tasmania become child sex abusers. The first question is: on what is that based? Then if you could also respond in regard to that this does not take into account offending by religious brothers, so what is the number of these that relate to offending in Catholic schools in terms of the current situation that exists within the Catholic school system?

 

Prof. CAHILL — The 1 in 20 is based on the analysis I have given in my submission of the priests from the dioceses of Victoria and Tasmania who trained at Corpus Christi College from 1940 to 1972. I chose that period because some from the very early period are still alive — they are very old — whereas those ordained in 1972 are now over 65. In reaching a figure I think it is important to have a data baseline, and it is very hard to achieve, but when we did that calculation and on the basis of data that I and other colleagues who are former priests know about and from information available on the Broken Rites website we were able to come up with

that figure.

** Cartoon comment found at Google Images