A parliamentary investigation into alleged cover-ups and failures to properly report child abuse by Church organizations in Australia opens today.
Among recommendations that are put before the probe include a register for Church personnel and a program to monitor training for workers in religious groups.
A parliamentary committee opens the hearing into the allegations after receiving dozens of submissions detailing, for instance, hindering investigations into sex abuse cases.
Intercultural studies expert Professor Des Cahill says he plans to recommend a formal structure for tracking people who work in religious organisations, and how training is handled.
A register for staff of religious organisations could help prevent abuse, he said in a report by the Herald Sun.
In a submission by victims’ support group Broken Rites, more than 40 accused abusive priests and religious leaders are named.
They include allegations against Father Julian Fox, now working in Rome, who taught at Salesian College Rupertswood, Sunbury. The Church is accused of protecting him overseas.
“Too often, by protecting criminals, the Church authorities have aided and abetted these crimes,” the submission states.
Meanwhile, The Australian reported that lawyers in a class action against the Christian Brothers and Sisters of Mercy religious orders say claims by the Catholic Church that it is committed to facing up to child abuse are “laughable”.
Lawyer Adrian Joel said the Church had spent the past three years in legal maneuvers to avoid responsibility for abuse in a class action involving thousands of former child migrants.
Joel said unless investigatons deal with the legal barriers raised by the Church, “the hearing will simply be ritualistic nonsense”.
Former child migrants, sent to Australia from Church homes in Britain, Ireland and Malta, and raised in appalling conditions from the 1940s to the 60s, are seeking to sue the Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Mercy, the report said.
The scandal was the subject of a Senate inquiry in 2001. The federal government paid compensation of $3.7 million in 2002, while former prime minister Kevin Rudd apologised for the government’s role in 2009.
Joel said legal action was barred by a “mosaic of” sate and federal laws.
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