"These numbers are shocking. They are tragic and they are indefensible," chief executive of the Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council Francis Sullivan said in a statement to the Commission.
"This data, along with all we have heard over the past four years, can only be interpreted for what it is: a massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia to protect children from abusers."
This image of statistices released by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse should be hung in every Catholic Church between the photos of the local Archbishop and the Pope.
Celibacy isn't the problem in Catholicism. Mandatory celibacy is a problem but the issue that lies underneath this long and tragic history is the cult of clericalism.
Perhaps those popular photos of local and global leader need to be taken down as an act of repentance and recognition of the failure of the institution to deliver on its core business: being a sign and sacrament of the reign of God.
Rev. Thomas Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
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