Pedophilia, premier Australia: national tragedy emerged

• Australian Church: Shame on sexual abuse, we apologize

• Pedophilia.

  Cardinal Pell: "The Church has made enormous mistakes"

• Card. Pell charged with abuse.

  Him: all false.

  Pope: farewell to defend himself.

  He will go to Australia

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December 15, 2017 Australia Commission of Inquiry Report on Institutional Responses to Pedophilia "revealed a national tragedy. I thank the members of the commission and those who dared to tell their stories."

Thus the Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, commented on the results of the investigation which collected the depositions of over 15,000 people and heard behind closed doors over 8,000 victims of sexual abuse, mostly suffered in religious institutions. 

Commission President Peter McClellan warned that this is not "a problem of the past".

"Over many decades, many institutions have betrayed our children. Child protection and civil justice systems have abandoned them," he said.

Police have often refused to believe the children and investigate their complaints, and the criminal justice system has created "many barriers" to successful prosecutions, he added.    

Since it was established in 2013 by Julia Gillard's Labor government, the six-member commission has held hearings in the country's six states and two territories, issued 1.2 million documents and identified more than 4,000 documents. institutions where abuses have been committed in recent decades.

Nearly 2600 people were reported to the police and other authorities and 230 prosecutions were initiated.

Among the 409 recommendations contained in the final report of the investigation into pedophilia in Australia, the commission proposes to review the secrecy of confession, with the obligation for priests to report sexual abuse to the police in they revealed.

And also to rethink the vow of chastity, considering it at the root of many child abuse

, and suggesting that it become 'voluntary'.

Indications that are rejected by the Catholic bishops of Sydney, Anthony Fisher, and of Melbourne, Dennis Hart.

The latter admitted that if someone revealed to him in confession that he had committed child abuse, he would feel "terribly opposed", but would not violate the secret.

"The punishment for a priest who violates the secret of confession, excommunication, is a spiritual, real and serious question", he

added.  

Among the prelates who deposed before the commission, the former cardinal of Sydney George Pell, called into question not for facts directly attributed to him but for having 'covered up' crimes committed by priests of his diocese.

The prelate was later indicted in Australia next March on charges of multiple 'historic' pedophile crimes, targeting multiple victims.

The 76 / year old cardinal, to whom the pope has granted a period of leave from the post of prefect of the Vatican's economic affairs, has always firmly rejected all accusations.