Falling short !

It is encouraging that the highest ranking Catholic in Australia, Cardinal George Pell has been more open in discussing the failings of the Catholic church in dealing with incidents where priests sexually abused children. He has apologised on behalf of the church and agrees that fear of scandals damaging the good name of the church resulted in offending priests being moved to distant parishes and all matters sexual being subjected to " cover up ".

This evidence, given at the Victorian Parliamentary Enquiry suggests that the church has turned over a new leaf and such things will be handled differently in the future.   It is what was not said that will have some people convinced that deep down the church still believes that such sexual matters are best handled " in house " - and at the discretion of senior church people.

Many of those following the events of this enquiry are waiting for a commitment that all and every incident of priests sexually molesting children will be instantly referred to the police.   Lack of such a hard and fast commitment - is the " Elephant in the room " that nobody seems to want to recognise !

Sexually abusing a child by a person in authority is a major crime.  The public has a right to expect that person to be investigated and charged - and put before a court for punishment.   That is the basic rule of law in this country.  A person who commits such a crime against children needs to be publicly exposed and placed on the sex register so further control over children is impossible.  Such a commitment from the church has not been forthcoming !

The matter of compensation  also seems to have been evaded.  The church has placed a $ 75,000 limit on such payments in this country, which is far lower than money offered to church victims in the United States.   Those more generous compensation payments have cost the church $ 33 billion over the past fifteen years. When this question was raised, it was claimed that the Australian amounts " compared favourably with compensation paid in other parts of the world ".    That seems to be a deliberate attempt to equate compensation with the lower living standards in third world countries.   This is a rich church - and it fully intends to stay that way.

This enquiry has the church moving in the right direction, but it will probably avoid it's full obligations until legal authorities bite the bullet and charge a church elder with deliberately avoiding bringing a known offence to the notice of the police.   It is only when not doing so involves actual time in a prison that the church hierarchy will fully obey the law.   They are servants of the church - but they are also bound by the laws of this country.