The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria is part of the Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia and the much wider Catholic sexual abuse scandal in general, which involves charges, convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. [1] The Catholic Church in Victoria has been implicated in a reported 40 suicides among about 620 sexual abuse victims acknowledged to the public after internal investigations by the Catholic Church in Victoria.
Following a preliminary 2012 police investigation, on 17 April 2012 the Government established the Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations "to inquire into, consider and report to the Parliament on the processes by which religious and other non-government organisations respond to the criminal abuse of children by personnel within their organisations." [2] The Inquiry tabled its report to Parliament on 13 November 2013 and the Government tabled its response to the Inquiry's recommendations on 8 May 2014. [3]
In April 2012, citing press reports that police were preparing a coronial brief on some 40 suicides linked to sexual abuse by clergy, the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, said he thought "that Victoria Police should give the report to the Coroner. There needs to be a proper investigation of any suicides." [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]
Shortly after press reports of the deaths based on a leaked police report written by Detective Sergeant Kevin Carson [9] the Victorian government moved for the Family and Community Development Committee of the Victorian Parliament to investigate "into the handling of child abuse by religious and other non-government organisations." The committee commenced an inquiry into "the processes by which religious and other non-government organisations respond to the criminal abuse of children by personnel within their organisations". [10] Archbishop Hart made a submission to the parliamentary committee on behalf of the leaders of the Catholic Church in Victoria, called Facing the Truth. [11] In a preliminary statement it indicated that: "In the past 16 years, about 620 cases of criminal child abuse have been upheld by the Church in Victoria. Most claims relate to incidents from 30 and up to 80 years ago. The Church has received very few complaints of abuse that has taken place since 1990." [11] Reasoning that because sexual abuse is rarely reported, campaign groups believe these numbers may represent only a fraction of the cases which actually occurred. [12]
Regarding the inquiry, Shane Mackinlay, master of the Catholic Theological College in Melbourne, said, "Our submission [faces] the truth of those sort of numbers and the horrific extent and the horrific consequences for each of the victims represented by the numbers... Where there was absolutely dramatic and appalling rates of abuse in the 1970s and 1980s, that's dropped off extraordinarily." The submission to Parliament was not released in full. [5]
Archbishop Hart made a statement about the "horrific abuse": "We look to this inquiry to assist the healing of those who have been abused, to examine the broad context of the church's response, especially over the last 16 years, and to make recommendations to enhance the care for victims and preventative measures that are now in place." [12]
The Inquiry finished holding hearings in mid-2013 and tabled its report to Parliament on 13 November 2013 and the Government tabled its response to the Inquiry's recommendations on 8 May 2014. The Government supported all the recommendations of the Inquiry, some of them in principle and others of which had already been implemented. [3]
In May 2020 newly disclosed portions of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse report, which was originally published in redacted form in December 2017, revealed that priests and clergy staff accused of abusing children within the Archdiocese of Melbourne were sometimes "dealt with" by being transferred to other parishes. [13]
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns and other members of religious life. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, St. Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothers with the goal of educating young people, especially those most neglected. While most of the brothers minister in school settings, others work with young people in parishes, religious retreats and spiritual accompaniment, at-risk youth settings, young adult ministry and overseas missions.
George Pell is an Australian cardinal of the Catholic Church. He served as the inaugural prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy between 2014 and 2019, and was a member of the Council of Cardinal Advisers between 2013 and 2018. Ordained a priest in 1966 and bishop in 1987, he was made a cardinal in 2003. Pell served as the eighth Archbishop of Sydney (2001–2014), the seventh Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001) and an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne (1987–1996). He has also been an author, columnist and public speaker. Since 1996, Pell has maintained a high public profile on a wide range of issues, while retaining an adherence to Catholic orthodoxy.
Denis James Hart is a retired Australian prelate of the Catholic Church. He was Archbishop of Melbourne from 2001 to 2018.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is a Latin Rite metropolitan archdiocese in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Erected initially in 1847 as the Diocese of Melbourne, a suffragan diocese of Archdiocese of Sydney, the diocese was elevated in 1874 as an archdiocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Melbourne and is the metropolitan for the suffragan dioceses of Sale, Sandhurst, Ballarat, and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Ss Peter and Paul. The Archdiocese of Hobart is attached to the archdiocese for administrative purposes. St Patrick's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Melbourne, currently Peter Comensoli, who succeeded Denis Hart on 1 August 2018.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, based in Ballarat, Australia, is a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and was established in 1874. Its geography covers the west, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The cathedral is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.
Fr. Ivan Payne is an Irish Roman Catholic priest and convicted child molester.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle is a suffragan Latin Rite diocese of the Archdiocese of Sydney, established in 1847 initially as the Diocese of Maitland and changed to the current name in 1995. The diocese covers the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions of New South Wales in Australia.
This page documents Catholic Church sexual abuse cases by country.
As distinct from abuse by some parish priests, who are subject to diocesan control, there has also been abuse by members of Roman Catholic orders, which often care for the sick or teach at school. While diocesan clergy have arranged parish transfers of abusive priests, so also the Orders' members have been found to relocate abusive Brothers to other places.
The sexual abuse cases in Dublin archdiocese are major chapters in the series of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases in Ireland. The Irish government commissioned a statutory enquiry in 2006 that published the Murphy Report in November 2009.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Europe has affected several dioceses in European nations. Italy is an exceptional case as the 1929 Lateran Treaty gave the Vatican legal autonomy from Italy, giving the clergy recourse to Vatican rather than Italian law.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale, an Australian laicised Catholic priest, was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.
The parish transfers of abusive Catholic priests, also known as priest shuffling, is a pastoral practice that has greatly contributed to the aggravation of Catholic Church sexual abuse cases. Some bishops have been heavily criticized for moving offending priests from parish to parish, where they still had personal contact with children, rather than seeking to have them permanently returned to the lay state by laicization. The Church was widely criticized when it was discovered that some bishops knew about some of the alleged crimes committed, but reassigned the accused instead of seeking to have them permanently removed from the priesthood.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
Child sexual abuse is a matter of concern in Australia, and is the subject of investigation and prosecution under the law, and of academic study into the prevalence, causes and social implications.
The Anglican Communion sexual abuse cases are a series of allegations, investigations, trials, and convictions of child sexual abuse crimes committed by clergy, nuns, and lay members of the Anglican Communion.
Revelation is a three-episode Australian documentary series directed by Nial Fulton and Sarah Ferguson. The series was broadcast on ABC TV in March 2020. In a world television first, the producers took cameras into the criminal trials of Catholic priests accused of sex crimes against children and interviewed Father Vincent Ryan and Brother Bernard McGrath, two of the most prolific child sex abusers in Australia. The final episode features Cardinal George Pell, a senior Catholic cleric accused of abusing boys at a Ballarat orphanage in Australia.
