In the process of determining the nature and causes of historical acts of child sexual abuse, the social and institutional context at the time of the abuse is of great importance. Thus, if the Church’s responses to child sexual abuse during the period covered by any given inquiry are found to be inadequate by that inquiry, then these responses ought in all fairness to be inconsistent with the standards and expectations of the general community and relevant experts at the times when the Church responded as it did. More specifically, it cannot reasonably be expected that the Church have knowledge – knowledge upon which standards and expectations are based – that is not available to health professionals or other professionals at the times in question.

We note that in 1976 the Department of Health in Ireland published a major report about non-accidental injury to children which did not even mention child sexual abuse. Furthermore, the 1977 Memorandum on Non -Accidental Injury to Children that was based on the report, did not mention child sexual abuse. In 1983 the guidelines from the Department of Health only mention child sexual abuse in passing (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 11). It is in 1987 that the Department of Health set out procedures for the identification, investigation and management of child sexual abuse. However, these guidelines concerned family members and primary carers of the child. There were no guidelines regarding a child being abused by a person outside of the family. The guidelines also did not address historical allegations of child sexual abuse. It was only in the early 1990s that a general awareness of the pervasiveness of child sexual abuse in Ireland emerged with a number of high-profile cases including: the Kilkenny Incest Investigation in 1993; the West of Ireland Farmer case in 1995; and the case of Fr Brendan Smyth’s arrest in 1994 (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 12).

Between 1995 and 1996, and after many other developments in the Church concerning child sexual abuse, the Framework Document (the Church in Ireland’s old guidelines for handling complaints of child sexual abuse), was sent to all dioceses. This document advised bishops to report all allegations of child sexual abuse to An Garda Síochána and the Health Board (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 39). It was at this time (1996) that the Child Care Act 1991was fully implemented by the Government of Ireland (DACI 2009, 100). Accordingly, it could reasonably be argued that the Church’s response to the problem of child sexual abuse in its ranks evolved with the broader community’s understanding of, and response to, child sexual abuse. This does not necessarily excuse the Catholic Church for its inadequate response to the problem of child sexual abuse any more than it excuses the general community, including the government and its law enforcement, health, social welfare and other agencies, for their inadequate response. However, it does mitigate it. See section 1.2.6 for further details.

The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, or the Ryan Report, was established in 2000. It was created in accordance with the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Act, 2000 (CICSA 2009, Vol 1, 1.05). The remit of the Commission was to hear evidence about childhood abuse, including child sexual abuse, in Irish institutions (including but not restricted to the Catholic Church). The functions of the Commission were as follows: to hear allegations of child abuse that allegedly occurred in institutions between the years 1914-2000; to inquire into abuse; to determine the causes and extent of child abuse in institutions; and, to investigate the culpability of relevant institutions. There were two independent committees of the Commission: (1) the Confidential Committee; and (2) the Investigative Committee (CICSA 2009, Vol. 3, 1.05).

As mentioned earlier, we do not offer an analysis of the Ferns Inquiry, given the overlap with the Murphy Inquiry and given the Murphy Inquiry is the larger inquiry. However, for the sake of completeness we offer this brief outline of the Ferns Inquiry and address some of the issues not well-covered in the Murphy Inquiry.

The Ferns Inquiry began in 2003. There were four phases to the inquiry. The first phase was an analysis of George Birmingham’s Report to establish the parameters of the inquiry. The second phase was a research phase that concentrated on three research topics: (1) Child sexual abuse; (2) Paedophilia/Ephebophilia (paedophilia pertains to sexual abuse of prepubescent children (typically defined as aged 11 years old or less), ephebophilia to post-pubescent children (typically defined as 15-19 years of age); and (3) Governance in the Church, the Health Board and An Garda Slochana. The third phase investigated events that occurred in the Diocese of Ferns. The fourth phase consisted of the writing of the report (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 3-5). As mentioned above, we discuss salient findings from the Ferns Inquiry in other sections of this book, as appropriate. Here we make only a few brief points regarding the findings concerning the Diocese of Ferns.

The Ferns Inquiry examined the handling of allegations of historical child sexual abuse in the Diocese of Ferns. Unlike the Ryan Report, the Ferns Inquiry was only interested in child sexual abuse and not child abuse in general. 21 priests were accused of a total of 100 offences. Of these 21 priests, six were dead at the time the allegations against them were made, and a further three died after the allegations had been made. The allegations consist of both substantiated and unsubstantiated ones. Two priests pleaded guilty to some of the allegations made against them. However, most of the priests who were the subject of an allegation strongly denied the allegations. Those priests who were dead at the time the allegations were made were obviously not in a position to contest, let alone refute, the allegations. As was the case with the other inquiries constituting the Irish Inquiry, most of the allegations detailed in the Ferns Inquiry were not reported to the Diocese of Ferns prior to 1990, i.e. the allegations were made many years, indeed often decades, after the act of child sexual abuse was alleged to have occurred (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 70).

Moreover, notwithstanding that legislators, government bodies, and health professionals were seemingly unaware of the pervasiveness and dangers of child sexual abuse (see section 1.2.1) the commissioners undertaking the Ferns Inquiry did not believe this provided the Catholic Church with an excuse for its poor handling of allegations of historical acts of child sexual abuse. They argued the Catholic Church should have been better informed than the broader community regarding the topic. One reason offered was the existence of evidence that the Church in the medieval world considered child sexual abuse to be one of the most serious offences (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 13). This argument is not compelling; presumably the members of the community also believed child sexual abuse to be a serious offence. Therefore, it is one thing to believe it is a serious offence and quite another to know whether it is happening on a significant scale. Note, most of the allegations were made decades after the alleged events occurred. Hence, in many cases the Church had no knowledge the alleged crimes had even occurred at the time of the alleged offences. Moreover, this is still often the case given that it is very difficult to prove the veracity of claims of historical child sexual abuse.

That said, in spite of the Commission’s concerns regarding the perceived early failings of the diocese, the inquiry said it was satisfied that the diocese operated at a “very high level” of child protection at the time the report was written. The inquiry acknowledged the Church had already addressed, in the years before the inquiry and whilst the inquiry was underway, many failings that were identified in historical cases of child sexual abuse. For example, the inquiry stated that processes relating to the selection and training of priests had undergone considerable positive change (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 35). In the nearly 20 years since the report was written the Church in Ireland has considerably improved its safeguarding, as is outlined in section 1.2.6 Indeed, it is not a stretch of the imagination to say that the contemporary Church has the most stringent safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults than any other institution.

The Dublin Archdiocese Commission of Investigation report (commonly called the Murphy Report or the Dublin Report) inquired into, what it presented as, a representative sample of cases concerning the handling of allegations and suspicions of child sexual abuse against priests working in the Archdiocese of Dublin from 1975-2004. Some of the allegations came to the attention of the Diocese of Dublin after the implementation of the Framework Document and the Ferns Inquiry. Therefore, the Commission was interested in determining whether the diocese was handling complaints in accordance with the processes outlined in the Framework Document and in accordance with the recommendations of the Ferns Inquiry.

As was the case with the Ferns Inquiry, the Murphy Inquiry differed from the Ryan Inquiry. The Ryan Inquiry concerned child abuse in general (including but not restricted to child sexual abuse) in residential institutions, including industrial schools, run by various religious orders and congregations. Furthermore, the Ryan Inquiry received thousands of allegations of abuse and, among these, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse. By contrast, the Murphy Inquiry focused solely on child sexual abuse and chose to examine only a representative sample of the available allegations of child sexual abuse and allegations of suspicions of child sexual abuse (DACI 2009, 1-2). An example of a suspicion of child sexual abuse is as follows: parishioners complained that a priest was alone with an altar boy in the sacristy, but, when asked, the altar boy said that he had not been abused. In total there were allegations of child sexual abuse against 172 named priests and 11 unnamed priests. 102 priests were within the remit of the investigation of the Murphy Inquiry (DACI 2009, 2). 46 priests were chosen for the representative sample. Most of the complaints related to boys – the ratio is 2.3 boys to 1 girl (DACI 2009, 3).

At the end of the commission of inquiry into the Dublin Archdiocese in 2009 the government asked the inquiry to extend the remit of the inquiry to investigate the Diocese of Cloyne. This report differed from the other inquiries in that it solely assessed complaint handling post 1996 i.e. 1996-2009 – after policies for addressing child sexual abuse were put in place. It was the Church’s own safeguarding watchdog that first raised concerns regarding complaints handling in the Diocese of Cloyne.

Unlike the Dublin Inquiry, the Commission examined all allegations and suspicions of child sexual abuse regarding clerics of the Cloyne Diocese that were within the general remit of the inquiry and not merely a representative sample of them. In total there were 19 clerics within the remit of the inquiry who were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse or who were otherwise suspected of child sexual abuse. This number includes one unnamed cleric. It is claimed that 12 clerics listed in the Diocese of Cloyne Diocesan Directory for 1996 were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse or were otherwise suspected of child sexual abuse (DACI 2011, 2).

The inquiry was concerned with allegations of historical acts of child sexual abuse. The oldest allegation concerned an alleged event that occurred in the 1930s. Regarding the clerics, four were dead when the first complaint against them was made. Six clerics were retired or about to retire when complaints were first made against them (DACI 2011, 3). At the time the report was written eight of the clerics were dead, three were retired, two were not in ministry, and two were in ministry in the diocese (DACI 2011, 4). It is claimed the Diocese of Cloyne failed to respond to these allegations adequately on the grounds that only some of these allegations were passed on to the Gardai and civil authorities and only some of the allegations were investigated adequately by the Church (DACI 2011, 3). It is important to note the objective of the inquiry was to assess how the Diocese of Cloyne handled complaints of child sexual abuse according to the standards set out in the Framework Document.

The following timeline indicates important dates and periods in relation to (alleged) incidents of child sexual abuse and the responses of the Catholic Church in Ireland in respect of the introduction of child safety measures, as far as they are reported in the inquiry.

1962 – Pope John XXIII issued a special procedural law for processing cases of priests who had been engaged in soliciting sex in the sacrament of Confessional. The document required secrecy from all church officials involved. Priests, witnesses and complainants who breached the secrecy clause in this document were automatically excommunicated (Brundage 1987, 71).

Mid 1970s – This was the peak time as far as alleged acts of child sexual abuse in the Church were concerned. However, in the Church and in the broader community there was little knowledge of the extent of the problem. For instance, “there was no public, professional or Government perception either in Ireland or internationally that child sexual abuse constituted a societal problem or was a major risk to children” (DACI 2009, 111).

1975-2004 – Under canon law the period of prescription (statute of limitations) for complaints of child sexual abuse was five years (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 72).

Late 1970s – Bishop Donald Herlihy (Bishop of Ferns) began to use psychological experts to assess priests accused of child sexual abuse.

Early 1980s – Awareness and knowledge of child sexual abuse in Ireland emerged.

Early 1980s – In the early 1980s seminary training began to address the personal development of seminarians in St Peters, thus creating more resilient clerics who were less susceptible to the external factors that are a high-risk for regressed offenders (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 33). Prior to this, child sexual abuse was not discussed in seminaries (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 25).

Mid 1980s – The Ferns Diocese utilised a treatment centre in Stroud, England (formed in 1959) to treat priests who were accused of child sexual abuse. The Diocese also used treatment centres in the USA. (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 14-15).

– The number of allegations of child sexual abuse began to decrease.

1982 – A few social workers from the Health Department visited California to learn how to work with victims of child sexual abuse.

1983 – The Irish Association of Social Workers held a conference on child sexual abuse in Dublin (DACI 2009, 112).

1983 – The Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland in association with the Canadian Canon Law Society created The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit. Canon 1395:2 of the 1983 code states “A cleric who has offended … against the sixth commandment of the Decalogue, if the crime was committed… with a minor under the age of sixteen years, is to be punished with just penalties, not excluding dismissal from the clerical state if the case so warrants.” (The age limit was raised to 18 in 1996) (DACI 2009, 65).

1988 – Child sexual abuse assessment units were established in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children, Crumlin and in Children’s University Hospital, Temple Street (the St Claire’s Unit) (DACI 2009, 112).

1988 – The Ferns Diocese introduced improved screening processes for candidates wishing to enter the priesthood.

1989 – A course on the personal development of seminarians was developed and taught by psychologists (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 33).

1991 – The Child Care Act 1991 came into being. Prior to this time the residential homes in the Irish Inquiry were not subject to statutory regulation (DACI 2009, 103-4).

Mid 1990s – From the mid-1990s it was argued that many people with a sexual orientation towards children cannot have their orientation changed. However, it was also widely believed that an attraction to children could be treated by psychologists and psychiatrists with therapy and drugs (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 21).

1994 – The Irish Catholic Bishop’s Conference established an Advisory Committee to create guidelines for handling allegations of child sexual abuse.

1995-96 – The Framework Document was sent to all dioceses. This document advised bishops to report all allegations of child sexual abuse to An Garda Síochána (the police) and the Health Board. Before this time there was no standard in Ireland for responding to allegations of child sexual abuse. Prior to this time Diocesan bishops formulated their own responses, albeit responses consistent with canon law. Bishops were authorized to restrict a priest’s activities for the duration of an investigation (The Ferns Inquiry 2005, 39). However, in reality many bishops struggled with this process (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 41).

1996 – The Child Care Act 1991was fully implemented (DACI 2009, 100).

1996-2008 – The Conference of Religious of Ireland and a number of Catholic dioceses including the Archdiocese of Dublin spent €700,000 on treatment initiatives for victims of child sexual abuse (DACI 2009, 137).

1999 – Bishop Eamonn Walsh established the Laffoy Commission, later called the Ryan Commission to liaise with the government’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (DACI 2009, 130).

2000 – Keven Doran (previous director of vocations, Archdiocese of Dublin) contacted the An Garda Síochána in an attempt to introduce police screening for candidates for the priesthood. Doran was advised that the Catholic Church was not eligible to receive police screening for its clerical candidates (DACI 2009, 156).

2001 – Pope John Paul II (2001) issued the document, Sacramentorum Sanctitatis Tutela. This document outlined new guidelines for handling grave offences including child sexual abuse.

2001 – The period of prescription (statute of limitations) was extended to ten years from the complainant’s 18th birthday (DACI 2009, 72).

2001 – The CDF was authorised to have oversight in cases of child sexual abuse (Ferns Inquiry 2005, 13-14).

2002 – Bishop Walsh was appointed as Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese. He ensured that all outstanding allegations of child sexual abuse were reviewed with the newly created Advisory Panel. Walsh asked members of the public to report new allegations of child sexual abuse to the Gardai and the Health Board, and also to report allegations of child sexual abuse that were previously not handled adequately to these agencies (DACI 2009, 131).

2002 – The National Child Protection Office of the Irish Bishops’ Conference successfully lobbied the then Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, to have the Church designated as a body that could seek vetting of prospective priests (DACI 2009, 156).

2002 – Pope Francis granted the CDF discretionary power to investigate complaints dating back longer than ten years (DACI 2009, 73).

2000-2003 – The Bishops’ Committee on Child Protection (formally the Irish Bishops’ Committee on Child Abuse) released Time to Listen. This report is an independent report that was Commissioned by the Irish bishops and undertaken by The Health Services Research Centre at the Department of Psychology, Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (The Ferns Inquiry 2005, 16).

2003 – The Archdiocese of Dublin established a Child Protection Service. Its role was to assist the archdiocese in the implementation of child protection policies and procedures, and to provide pastoral care to victims of child abuse.

2005 – The bishops’ child protection office created a national training scheme. This course was taught at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth (DACI 2009, 132). The Ferns Inquiry endorsed the formation training of the Maynooth College. It was claimed that there were more resources available to train students by comparison with the situation 40 years earlier, and that the college-maintained training throughout an ordinand’s discernment, including offering conferences, lectures, advice, spiritual direction, and professional counselling. It was claimed this resulted in students acquiring psycho-sexual-socio maturity (Ferns Inquiry, 2005).

2005 – The Framework Document was reviewed and replaced by Our Children Our Church (DACI 2009, 132).

2006 – Garda vetting became available to the Church in Ireland through the Garda central vetting unit (DACI 2011, 129).

2009 – New guidelines were introduced by the National Board for Safeguarding Children. This board was set up in 2006 and replaced the bishops’ Child Protection Office (DACI 2009, 133).

As mentioned at the outset of this discussion, the events that are listed here are sourced from the inquiry. Therefore, the listed events finish in 2009 because the inquiry ceased at this time. Since 2009 there have been further, considerable, developments in safeguarding in the Catholic Church in Ireland. For example, safeguarding policies have been refined over the years. A major revision of the policy Safeguarding Children: Policy and Standards for the Catholic Church in Ireland was completed in 2023. Induction of new experts to work according to the systems outlined in the document and staff training commenced in 2024. By 2024 all dioceses in Ireland had been reviewed in relation to safeguarding practices, etc. (NBSCCCI, 2024, 10). However, the point of this timeline is to assess whether the Catholic Church’s claim that it was on a “learning curve” in relation to child sexual abuse was reasonable. The Irish Inquiry did not accept this claim.

The Irish government had always envisioned a redress scheme would follow-on from the Ryan Inquiry and set about creating the Redress Board before the completion of that inquiry. In 2002 the Residential Institutions Redress Act was passed into law and the Residential Institutions Redress Board came into begin. In keeping with the regulations in the Act the board made all provisions, including advertising in the media, to inform former residents of residential institutions of the purpose of the scheme, namely, to pay compensation to all victims of abuse (Republic of Ireland 2002, 6).

The standard of proof required to make a claim for redress was the “balance of probabilities” test used in the civil court. There was no requirement that the applicant prove legal fault. Moreover, the redress scheme had a very broad definition of abuse including the catch-all words “any other act or omission towards the child” (Republic of Ireland 2002, 3). Furthermore, given that, all of the claims were historical in nature, the collection of evidence was difficult. However, notwithstanding this, the board did have a rigorous process for assessing claims. For example, there was the provision for cross-examination. This is in contrast with the redress scheme in Australia where there is a lower standard of proof and no provision for cross-examination (see section 3:11.). Relevant details concerning the Irish redress scheme are as follows.

The board would make an award to an applicant if the board was satisfied that the applicant had: “(a) proof of his or her identity (b) that he or she was resident in an institution during his or her childhood, and (c) that he or she was injured while so resident and that injury is consistent with any abuse that is alleged to have occurred while so resident…” (Republic of Ireland 2002, 7). Notwithstanding a low standard of proof the board was granted the powers to write to people or institutions of interest and request information, request advisors prepare a report on the alleged injuries of the applicant (Republic of Ireland 2002, 9), assess the applicant including interviewing the applicant and medical advisors (Republic of Ireland 2002, 10), notify relevant people who were named in the claims and invite relevant people to provide evidence, and allow cross-examination of the applicant to protect the alleged abuser from potentially false allegations (Republic of Ireland 2002, 11). This is in stark contrast to the Australian redress scheme that does not investigate allegations. Of note, when an applicant accepted an award, the applicant was requested to sign a waiver stating that the applicant would not commence or would discontinue any other proceedings against the alleged offender and any relevant public bodies (Republic of Ireland 2002, 12). Lastly, the decision to award a payment did not constitute a finding of fact that the alleged offender in a claim carried out the acts alleged in the application (Republic of Ireland 2002, 13).

As we can see there are many positive attributes of the redress scheme. However, it has been the subject of much controversy. It has been claimed the board was insensitive to applicants, the scheme did not run for long enough, the confidentiality clause in the award was unfair, and that most of the funding from the scheme came from taxpayers (BBC News 2009). To the topic of funding we now turn and the controversial request from the government that the religious orders pay for half of the costs of redress (the other half to be paid by the government). Notably, this request was challenged by religious orders in a document called, The moral challenge posed to religious about the cost of redress (2017).

This document reports that the government set up the redress scheme without an agreement to halve the costs with religious institutions but that religious institutions offered to contribute “€128 million in ‘cash, counselling costs and real property’”. At that time there were 1000 pending cases in the High Court against both the State and various religions congregations. Moreover, the redress scheme was created in 2007 before the impact of the global economic crisis and when, it is argued, the government was flush with money (An oblate of Mary Immaculate 2017, 2-3). Religious institutions were reluctant to make more of a commitment given the redress scheme was, in their words, overly generous. For example, it is argued that it was easy to get an award, and applicants did not have to prove that their injury was because of any fault or negligence on the institution’s part (An oblate of Mary Immaculate 2017, 3).

Amidst mounting backlash, the Taoiseach Brian Cowen, T. D. and the Minister of Education Mr. Batt O’Keeffe, T.D, declared that the agreement with religious congregations could not be reopened. Notwithstanding this, the Government exerted, what has been called, “moral pressure” on religious congregations to reimburse the Government on a “fifty-fifty” basis for its expenditure under the redress scheme including: half of the costs of the awards to applicants under the Residential Institutions Redress Act, 2002; half of the administration costs; and half of the costs of the work of the Ryan Commission of Inquiry itself. This occurred in the context of a significant economic downturn. Therefore, it has been argued the government was looking for a bailout of what was a poorly conceived scheme.

The religious congregations argued there was nothing immoral in their original offer of a fixed amount of money given that they warned the government about potential spiralling costs of the poorly conceived scheme. Moreover, religious congregations questioned the abrogation of moral responsibility on the part of others who were criticised in the report including, school authorities, the Dáil, the judiciary, and the Garda, who were not subject to moral pressure to finance the redress scheme or the inquiry (An oblate of Mary Immaculate 2017, 6-7).

Regarding the Ryan Report, it is evident that there was significant historical child abuse, including child sexual abuse, in industrial and reformatory schools that were largely run by religious congregations. However, it is important to stress that the significant problem of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Ireland is historical. For example, in the figures from the Confidential Committee in the Ryan Report 90% of the witnesses were first admitted to residential institutions between 1914 and 1965 (CICSA 2009, Vol. 3, 4.05). Most of the allegations of abuse concern events alleged to have occurred in the 1960s (CICSA 2009, Vol. 3, 9.09). The allegations in the Investigative Committee also relate to abuse that, if it occurred, then it occurred in the distant past. Indeed, the industrial schools which were a focus of this inquiry closed by the mid-1970s. A substantial number of the allegations concern alleged abuse that occurred 40 years prior to the closure of the industrial schools (CICSA 2009, Vol. 1, 5.38). The Murphy, Ferns, and Cloyne inquiries also report the historical nature of the allegations.

Moreover, it is evident the Church in Ireland did implement child-safety mechanisms which were consistent with those in place in the broader community and did so within the same timeframe. For example, the State implemented child–care legislation in 1996, which was the same year the Church began to implement child-safety mechanisms. On the other hand, our overview of the Cloyne Report showed that the Diocese of Cloyne failed on many fronts to fully implement, or adequately comply with, processes which were put in place to handle allegations of child sexual abuse. Notably, diocesan leaders failed to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police and to the CDF, in accordance with canon law. Furthermore, the Diocese did not appoint support people to victims of child sexual abuse and did not operate an independent advisory panel, as they said they would. However, we have also drawn attention to the understandable confusion regarding reporting allegations made against dead priests. We note the diocese failed to report claims made against dead priests to the police and the Health Department. We have argued that the Diocese should have reported these claims to the police for the reason that doing so would help the police to compile evidence. However, we also argued that it was unnecessary to report dead priests to the Health Department, given that the Health Department is concerned with risk assessments.

In closing it is important to note that the Irish Inquiry was a source of healing for many victims of child sexual abuse. Many told their stories for the first time to the various inquiries. Others found a more compassionate ear from the inquiries than they had otherwise found in church leaders. Moreover, this inquiry made a concerted effort to ensure that victims of child sexual abuse were compensated (at least in part) for cases of child sexual abuse that would have been difficult, if not impossible, to prove in the court system. It is worth noting here that the effects of child sexual abuse are far-reaching and given the ages of the victims often reorientate the trajectories of the victim’s lives. For example, disruptions in schooling at an early age can have a lifelong impact. Moreover, problems with trust that develop at an early age have far-reaching effects beyond the difficulties often cited regarding personal romantic relationships. Furthermore, and most shameful for the Church, the violation of a child by a person associated with the Church disrupts the flow of grace from the Church. Indeed, victims of child sexual abuse often say that as a result of the abuse they endured they have an uneasy relationship to the Church, and to faith more generally speaking. Thereby, child sexual abuse in the Church impedes the healing and salvific function of the Church, which is a great tragedy, and certainly puts the need for compensation in a wider perspective. The Irish Inquiry spotlighted the deficiencies in church processes concerning the handling of complaints of child sexual abuse and initiated church reforms on this front.

For a comprehensive understanding of the work of safeguarding in the Catholic Church in Ireland today, please visit the website of The National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland. National Board Publications

In reference to the latest report (concerning April 2023-March 2024) there were no accusations of child sexual abuse pertaining to an event alleged to have happened in the period 2010-2019 and only 1 allegation of child sexual abuse pertaining to an event alleged to have happened in the period 2020 -2023 (NBSCCCI 2024, 14).

As mentioned in the introduction, we discuss the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (England and Wales) because some of its findings call into question the findings of other inquiries. However, we do not discuss this inquiry at length because its data of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is not as extensive as it is in some of the other inquiries in this book.

The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) was established as a statutory inquiry in 2015 (IICSA n.d.a.). IICSA worked in much the same way as the Irish Inquiry. For example, it divided its work into three main components: (1) The Truth Project – where complainants told the commission stories of alleged sexual abuse; (2) The Research Project, and; (3) The Public Hearings Project (IICSA n.d.b.). IICSA was interested in child sexual abuse in a range of different institutions, i.e. not only Catholic institutions.

Some criticisms of the IICSA inquiry which are familiar from earlier inquiries, including the Irish and Australian inquiries, are as follows: IICSA defined a child as someone under the age of 18 (but did not take into account that the age of consent in the UK is 16) and it did not investigate or substantiate allegations of child sexual abuse. Yet, IICSA also diverged from some of its predecessors. For example, IICSA investigated the sexual abuse of adults if the abuse commenced when the adult was a child. Thus: “For the purposes of this inquiry “child” means anyone under the age of 18. However, the panel will consider abuse of individuals over the age of 18, if that abuse started when the individual was a minor” (IICSA n.d.c.). We note, IICSA consider acts of grooming to be child sexual abuse which is relevant here, as grooming is notoriously difficult to define and to discern (IICSA Research Team 2020, 68). Indeed, it is often difficult to distinguish grooming actions from other actions, such as merely befriending a minor, which might be entirely innocent at the time the act took place. Included in this category may be cases where an attraction developed on the part of an adult (i.e. a person over 18) to a person under the age of 18 but over the age of consent, e.g. a 17-year-old, and where the adult decided to wait to have sex with the 17-year-old until he or she reached the age of 18. Included in this category would be the case of Bridgette Macron, who was a teacher at a Catholic school and who developed an attraction to Emmanuel Macron, who is now the President of France, when he was under the age of 18, but who waited until he was 18 in order to begin a relationship with him.

Moreover, the inquiry worked in consultation with the Australian Royal Commission (IICSA n.d.d.) and in doing so likely imported errors from this inquiry. For instance, IICSA accepts the claim of the Australian Inquiry that 7% of all priests in Australia engaged in child sexual abuse; a claim argued in section 3.2.6. of this book to be incorrect. IICSA was also heavily influenced by the findings of other previous inquiries including the claim in the John Jay Inquiry that in the Catholic Church in the United States male-on-male child sexual abuse is to be understood as situational rather than the result of a homosexual orientation; a claim for which, as we show in section 2.2.6, the John Jay Inquiry does not provide credible evidence.

Some welcome differences between IICSA, on the one hand, and the Irish and other inquiries, on the other hand, concern the use of precise language regarding complainants/victims of child sexual abuse. For example, if a complaint was not substantiated by the Church or by a court trial the person making the allegation was called a “complainant” if an allegation was substantiated the person making the allegation was called a “victim” or “survivor” (IICSA 2020, 7). Moreover, this inquiry is truthful about the limits of the inquiry. For example,

Finally, IICSA referred all allegations of child sexual abuse to the police (IICSA n.d.d.), unlike, for instance, the French Inquiry (see section 4.2.9)

The findings of the Truth Project concern the accounts of victims of child sexual abuse who came to the Truth Project between June 2016 and November 2018. The data in this section concerns the report, Truth Project Thematic Report. Child Sexual Abuse in the Context of Religious Institutions, which focuses on different religious communities (i.e., not only the Catholic Church) (IICSA Research Team 2019, 1). 25% of participants alleged they were abused in the Catholic Church (IICSA Research Team 2019, 26). The alleged abuse occurred in either a place of worship or at an activity that was run by a religious group. The abusers in question were considered to be anybody who worked in a religious setting but also, children who abused other children. This latter group is described in the following odd terms: “other children or young people displaying harmful sexual behaviours in the context of an organisational culture of abuse (such as in close-knit religious communities…)” (IICSA Research Team 2019, 10). In total 183 people alleged to the Truth Project they were abused in a religious setting between 1940 and 2010. 133 people claimed to have been abused in a religious institution and 153 claimed to have been abused by a priest or a church-worker. (IICSA Research Team 2019,1,15).

A feature of the Truth Project is that it compared the statistics of religious institutions with the statistics of non-religious institutions. However, it remarks that these comparative figures are not representative nor statistically significant (IICSA Research Team 2019, 2). Given this we will only discuss the figures that relate to religious institutions. They are as follows: 42% of participants alleged they were first abused prior to the 1970s; 73% of participants alleged they were 8 or older when first abused; 61% of the participants were men; the average age of the participants was 54 (IICSA Research Team 2019, 19). Concerning the alleged perpetrators, 81% were clerics or church-workers and 96% were males (IICSA Research Team 2019, 24). Concerning the type of abuse, 62% of the participants alleged they were fondled while 32% alleged they were sexually penetrated (IICSA Research Team 2019, 25). Some participants spoke of multiple forms of abuse and abuse that persisted for years (IICSA Research Team 2019, 28). 34% of participants alleged they told somebody of the abuse (IICSA Research Team 2019, 34). 68% of the participants say they did not tell anybody at the time of the abuse (IICSA Research Team 2019, 38). 85% of participants disclosed the alleged abuse when it had stopped and 60% reported the alleged abuse to the police (IICSA Research Team 2019, 41). The latter figure casts doubt on subsequent inquiries into child sexual abuse that rely on general population surveys to determine the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, such as the French and Spanish inquiries. In these inquiries only a tiny fraction of those who alleged in the surveys that they were abused as children, reported the abuse to the police (see sections 4.2.7; 4.3.2)

This section discusses the findings of the IICSA (2020) report concerning the Roman Catholic Church. It’s investigation report concerns the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales and the Church’s institutional response to allegations of child sexual abuse. This report is based on the statistics from the Catholic Church regarding allegations of child sexual abuse and the findings of three sample case-studies: Ampleforth and Downside Abbeys and their schools (2018): Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School (2019c); and the Archdiocese of Birmingham (2019b).

There are further significant errors in the desk research that informed the investigation report just discussed, particularly in the rapid evidence assessment (REA). The REA report is titled Child sexual abuse within the Catholic and Anglican Churches: a rapid evidence assessment. This report is a fast and targeted review and analysis of the literature regarding child sexual abuse and religious institutions (IICSA 2020, 6).

This report has clearly suffered from undertaking its fast assessment, instead of a careful, rigorous and full systematic review, and, not unlike the investigation report, it is full of errors. Some of the errors were corrected after its original publication in 2017. For instance, in 2018 multiple corrections were made in relation to multiple roles, functions and activities of the Church, including the following ones: the involvement of the Anglican Church in services and programs for children; the role of the Archbishop of Canterbury; the description of a research study; the role of independent audits of diocesan safeguarding practices; the role of the Church of England and the Anglican Communion; the relationship of the Church of England and church schools and youth groups; the Archbishop’s Council and the safeguarding policy of the Church of England. The research team also used the incorrect Church of England safeguarding policy in the original version of the document (IICSA Research Team 2017, 2), among others.

The REA report is significant because IICSA relied on ‘information’ and arguments in the REA report which are recycled misinformation and invalid (or contentious) arguments. For example, the John Jay argument to the conclusion that male-on-male child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US is situational rather than driven by homosexual orientation has been uncritically accepted by the Australian Inquiry and IICSA (2020, 15). This is both surprising and problematic given that there is academic research (Sullins 2018) that challenges this claim and new evidence unearthed by IICSA, especially in the case-study into Ampleforth and Downside, that undermines the John Jay conclusion and, therefore, the view propounded by IICSA. For example, the case of Fr Bernard is relevant here (IICSA 2018, 59). Fr Bernard initially abused boys and later sexually harassed adult males when he attended the University of Oxford and had opportunities to interact with, indeed harass, adult females. Evidently, therefore he demonstrated a sexual orientation to males (whether adult males or boys). Furthermore, IICSA provides details of the pornographic content that predator monks, who were charged with child sexual abuse, were accessing on the internet, i.e.

As with Fr Bernard, RC-F18 (and other predator monks), sexually abused boys and displayed a homosexual orientation in manifesting a clear desire for male-to-male sexual activity when given the choice between this and male-to- female sexual activity. Hence, IICSA’s own evidence is contrary to the thesis of situational male-to-male sexual behaviour put forward in the John Jay Report – a thesis that IICSA uncritically endorses. Here it is worth noting the John Jay argument of situational male-to-male sexual behaviour is now 14 years old and its claims worthy of revision regarding the new evidence in this report and also the Vatican report into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who is alleged to have abused boys and men. Saliently, McCarrick was not lacking in opportunities to abuse girls, but he chose to abuse males exclusively (Secretariat of State of the Holy See 2020). Furthermore, in the EPHE report in the French Inquiry nearly half of the predators who were interviewed self-identified as homosexual (80% for those who only assaulted male children), and one third of the predators identified as bisexual. All of the predators who only abused female children identified as heterosexual (CIASE 2021, 149).

The findings of IICSA are not dissimilar to the findings of the other inquiries, analysed in this book. For example, and notwithstanding the contrary claim made in the Executive Summary, the allegations of child sexual abuse documented in IICSA are largely historical, there was a significant delay of decades in the reporting of most of the allegations, and most of the cases concern male-on-male sexual abuse. Moreover, evidence presented in IICSA demonstrates that the Church has introduced safeguarding measures over time that have, largely, been effective, but have been flawed in some respects. Some of the safeguarding measures that were put in place include the following. In 1994 Child abuse: pastoral and procedural guidelines: a report from a working party to the Catholic Bishops was produced (IICSA 2018, 2). In 2001 the Nolan Report was published. It contains 83 recommendations and encourages the “One Church” approach, which concerns a universal set of principles, policies and practices that prioritizes the welfare of children. As a result of the Nolan Report, the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults (COPCA) was established (IICSA 2020, vi-ii). The Nolan Report suggested that its recommendations should be reviewed after five years (IICSA 2020, 40). In 2007 the Cumberlege Report, Safeguarding with Confidence, was published. This report claims that 79 of the 83 Nolan recommendations had been addressed in full or in part. In 2008 the National Catholic Safeguarding Commission (NCSC) was formed to set the strategic direction of child protection policy and to monitor compliance. Each diocese now has a safeguarding commission supported by safeguarding coordinators and safeguarding representatives in parishes and religious institutes (IICSA 2020, vii). In 2011 Lord Carlile of Berriew, CBE, QC, was commissioned to produce a report into matters relating to Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School, Ealing (IICSA 2018, 3). The report was generally positive but also flagged some areas for improvement,

The analysis in this section focuses on the John Jay Inquiry into child sexual abuse in the USA. The John Jay Inquiry was commissioned by the Catholic Church – specifically, the Catholic Church in the USA. This is in contrast to some of the other inquiries analysed in this work, i.e. the Irish Inquiry and the Australian Inquiry. The latter were not commissioned by the Catholic Church but rather by governments. In 2002 the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. The National Review Board, which was established under this charter, in turn, commissioned the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to research into the nature and the scope of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in the United States of America. In 2003 and 2004 John Jay researchers sent an extensive survey to 195 dioceses which represented 98% of diocesan priests and 80% of religious priests. In this context a diocesan priest is to be understood as a priest who is in the service of the diocese to which he has been appointed and a religious priest is a priest who belongs to a monastic order or other consecrated order (Terry et al. 2004, 3). The survey contained a diocesan profile, a religious institute profile, a cleric survey of all members of the clergy who had an allegation of child sexual abuse made against them, and a victim survey to be filled out for each alleged victim of child sexual abuse. The John Jay Inquiry produced two reports. The first, the Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002, which was published in 2004, described the nature of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA. For example, it included information regarding where the alleged offences took place, the seriousness of the offences etc. The second report, the Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010, was released in 2011. This report is explanatory in nature; specifically, it offers explanations for incidents of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US increasing in the 1960s, peaking in 1970s and sharply declining in the 1980s (Terry et al. 2011, 2). The following information is sourced from these reports.

We have chosen to focus on the John Jay Inquiry since it represents child sexual abuse across the USA and is not restricted to a single or a small number of individual states. Moreover, the John Jay Inquiry has much to recommend it, both in respect of its methodology as well as its findings. Further, this inquiry has had a significant impact on the research into child sexual abuse undertaken by other inquiries. Thus, other inquiries, e.g. the Australian Inquiry (see Chapter 3) which occurred after the John Jay Inquiry, frequently reference it, accept some of its findings and utilize, to some extent, its methodology. However, this influence on other inquiries is not entirely a blessing. For some of John Jay’s findings should have been subjected to scrutiny and yet have not been. Rather their theories have been accepted uncritically by other inquiries, e.g. John Jay’s claim that the male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA were situational rather than the result of sexual orientation, even if correct, is in need of further justification. Indeed, the argument offered to justify its claim in this regard is not well made.

That said, the John Jay Inquiry generated some important statistics of allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA over many decades. We note the John Jay Inquiry does not include allegations which were deemed by the John Jay researchers to be implausible. In this important respect it differs from many of the other inquiries, e.g. the Irish Inquiry and the Australian Inquiry. The John Jay Inquiry rightly distinguishes between paedophile offenders and other child sex offenders and concluded that only a small percentage of the offenders in their study were paedophiles. This is in stark contrast to many media reports on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. For example, this misleading headline by Barry James (2002) appeared in the New York Times, “Priests and pedophilia: a scandal not only in America”. Yet, in the Nature and Scope study it is claimed that only 2 % of the allegations related to paedophilic behaviour (Terry et al. 54). Paedophilia being at the most serious end of the scale of child sexual abuse.

As with the other inquiries, the evidence provided by the John Jay Inquiry demonstrates that while child sexual abuse was a significant problem in the Catholic Church in the 1960s through to the early 1980s, there was no large-scale problem of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church from at least the early 1990s until 2010 (the last year covered by the John Jay Report). Indeed, the allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church pertaining to incidents alleged to have happened post 2010 have continued to decline. For instance,

So contrary to many media reports child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US is, in large part, an historical problem. Indeed, according to the John Jay Inquiry and the other inquiries in the USA and worldwide, the Catholic Church responded to this problem in the 1990’s in a manner that appears to have been effective, e.g. the introduction of a raft of child safety mechanisms.

The data from the survey instruments that were sent to Catholic bodies showed there were 4,392 priests who had been the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse in the period 1950-2002. These allegations do not include allegations that were withdrawn or known to be false. While this is a small percentage of priests, and this number includes unproven allegations of offences, nevertheless, this number is large in absolute terms. Indeed, alarmingly so, and indicates that there was a significant problem of child sexual abuse within the Catholic Church in the USA. The significance of the problem is magnified in the light of the fact that the Catholic Church, as a Christian institution, professes to be a protector of the innocent.

There are in fact two percentage numbers of priests with allegations of child sexual abuse provided in the John Jay Report. This discrepancy occurred because there is no definite number of all priests who were active between the years of 1950-2002. The data supplied by the Catholic Church states that there were 109, 694 priests who served during the period 1950-2002. If these figures are accurate then the percentage number of priests who served from 1950-2002 and who have been the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse is 4%. However, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate claims that there were 94,607 priests who served in the period from 1960-2002. Moreover, they claim that the number of priests with allegations of child sexual abuse over this period was 4,127. If this second set of figures are accurate then, 4.3% of priests were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse. The percentage of serving priests in any given year who were alleged to have abused children, in that year or any other year, changed over the period from 1960-2002. For instance, in 1970 the figure is 10%, in 1990 the figure is less than 4%. This downward trend has continued over the past two decades, i.e..07% over 2018-19.

75% of these allegations (the 4392 figure) pertained to events that were alleged to have taken place between 1960 and 1984 (Terry et al. 2004, 27). The total number of complaints against priests in relation to events that were alleged to have taken place over this period is 10,667 (Terry et al. 2004, 4). The duration of the alleged abuse of any given complainant is as follows: 38.4% – within a year; 21.8% – more than a year but less than two years; 28% – between two and four years; 10.2% – between 5 and 9 years; and in less than 1% – ten years or more (Terry et al. 2004, 5). 56% of accused priests were alleged to have committed abuse against one alleged victim, 27% were alleged to have committed abuse against two or three alleged victims, 145 were alleged to have committed abuse against four to nine alleged victims and 3.4% were alleged to have committed abuse against more than ten alleged victims. The 149 priests in the latter category (more than ten alleged victims) are allegedly responsible for abusing 2,960 alleged victims which is 26% of the total of alleged victims (Terry et al. 2004, 8). 55% of the priests were the subject of one allegation of child sexual abuse, 26.9% were the subject of 2-3 allegations, 13.9% were the subject of 4-9 allegations, and 3.5% were the subject of more than 10 allegations (Terry et al. 2004, 51).

1,021 priests who were the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse, or 24% of the total, were reported to the police. In most cases these reports led to investigations. Criminal charges were laid in 384 instances. It is not stated whether an individual charge relates to an individual priest or whether multiple charges were laid against a single priest. 252 of these priests were convicted and at least 100 of these priests served time in prison. In percentage terms, 6% of priests who were subject to an allegation of child sexual abuse were convicted and 2% of those received prison sentences, up until 2004 when the Nature and Scope report was written (Terry et al. 2004, 10). Accordingly, 252 priests out of a total of 94,607 priests (roughly 0.27 %) who served during the period 1960-2004 were proven in a criminal court to have committed child sexual abuse. However, the number of offending priests is, most likely, far higher for the following reasons: (1) it is difficult to prove child sexual abuse in a criminal court; and (2) only 24% of allegations were reported to the police.

It is generally agreed by researchers that offenders who are convicted of child sexual abuse represent a minority of cases. Indeed, it is claimed that sexual offences are the crimes that are least likely to be reported, at least as far as serious crimes are concerned (Terry et al. 2004, 23). However, we argue, it is unlikely that this is the case with allegations of child sexual abuse that are made against the Catholic Church in recent years in the context of commissions of inquiry, extensive media reporting, and the possibility of large compensation payments that are based on minimal evidence.

The John Jay Inquiry anonymised the details of the priests and the complainants (Terry et al. 2004, 17). The allegations in the study include unsubstantiated allegations. However, they do not include, what the study calls, “an implausible allegation”. The definition of an implausible allegation is as follows:

Regarding types of offenders, less than 5% of the priests who were alleged to have committed acts of child sexual abuse exhibited behaviour that is consistent with paedophilia – such as abusing pre-pubescent children (Terry et al. 2011, 3). In the Nature and Scope study (2011) it is claimed that 2 % of the allegations related to paedophilic behaviour. Paedophilic behaviour is defined in the following terms, “the exclusive presence of two or more victims under the age of eleven” (54). By contrast, ephebophilic behaviour is defined in the following terms, “the exclusive presence of two or more male victims between the ages of thirteen and seventeen”. According to this definition 18.9 % of the accused priests from the clinical files of the Causes and Context study could be classified as ephebophiles. When these figures are considered in relation to the overall number of priests in the Nature and Scope study (4,392 alleged abusers), it is claimed that 2% of the alleged abusers could be classified as paedophiles (exclusively attracted to pre-pubescent children, consistent with abuse of two or more children) and 10.8% could be classified as ephebophiles (attracted to 13-17-year-olds, by the John Jay definition). The priests who are not included in this number are alleged to have committed offenses against a single victim or abused victims of different ages (Terry et al. 2011, 54). For example, the John Jay Inquiry also include a category of offenders which they term, generalists. Generalist offenders are categorized by a pattern of offending against both pre-pubescent, pubescent and post-pubescent children. Below we discuss different types of offenders, as they are classified in the John Jay Report.

Special mention must be made here of ephebophilia, given that this designation is controversial and confusing. For instance, some scholars distinguish between a “hebephile” who is attracted to a young pubescent child (usually 11-14) and an “ephebophile” who is attracted to older teens (usually 15-19) (Prentky and Barbaree, 2011). However, the John Jay Inquiry consider an ephebophile to be an adult who is attracted to 13-17-year-olds (Terry et al. 2011, 53). Of course, the fact that puberty occurs at different times for different children also needs to be taken into account. Neither hebephilia nor ephebophilia are considered mental disorders by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM – V). For it is generally agreed that it is normal for a healthy man or woman to have an attraction to an adolescent who displays the physical features of an adult. However, many researchers consider people who have recurrent sexual fantasies about adolescents and urges to engage in sexual behaviour with adolescents to be abnormal and to constitute a specific paraphilia displaying group. Thus, hebephiles and ephebophiles are considered by many researchers to be people suffering from psychological pathologies (Terry et al. 2011, 53).

Martin Kafka (2004) claims, in a report commissioned by the Vatican, that the typical Catholic priest who abuses children is an ephebophile. Moreover, this is a popular belief. However, a problem emerges with Kafka’s claim. Specifically, most of the cases of child sexual abuse detailed in the John Jay Inquiry are claimed to be one-off offences, i.e. it is argued that perpetrators committed only one act of child sexual abuse, which suggests that these acts are not manifestations of a pathology. Indeed, the John Jay Inquiry claims that clerics who committed acts of child sexual abuse displayed fewer paraphilias than offenders who were not clerics (Please see Haywood et al. 1996). However, it is still significant that clerical abusers often abuse males who are older children, i.e. 13-17 years of age (Terry et al. 2011, 54). Yet, maybe the answer here is that these men are not driven by known pathologies but instead by the power imbalance. For example, many of the alleged offenders threatened their alleged victims in order to silence them. It could be argued that a 20-year-old is less susceptible to such threats. A further area of interest concerns the classification of offenders according to the underlying cause of their offending, i.e. compulsiveness or poor judgement due to alcohol abuse etc.

Classifying offenders by factors relating to their psychological make-up rather than merely by the nature of their offences is greatly influenced by (but not limited to) the work of Groth et al., whose work the John Jay researchers utilise in their report. Groth et al. (1982) classify child sexual offenders into two distinct classifications, fixated and regressed offenders. Fixated offenders are characterized as having a persistent, continual and compulsive attraction to children. They are usually diagnosed as paedophiles. Paedophiles tend not to be related to their victims and paedophiles begin to be attracted to pre-pubescent children during their (the paedophiles’) adolescence. Moreover paedophiles, being fixated offenders, do not develop past the point where they find children attractive and desirable. Further, the actions of paedophiles and other fixated offenders are typically premeditated, usually repeated, and do not result from stress (as is often the case with regressed offenders).

In contrast to the fixated offender, the regressed offender usually begins to offend in adulthood. This type of sexual offender is characterized by having disordered childhood relationships and offends as a result of environmental stressors. The stressors can be, among other things, unemployment, marital problems and substance abuse, or may be related to negative affective states such as loneliness, stress, isolation or anxiety which produce low self-esteem. Regressed offenders are more likely to commit acts of child sexual abuse that are opportunistic and one-off offences, i.e. they are typically situational offenders.

The John Jay Inquiry revealed that, when the sex of an alleged victim and of the alleged perpetrator were reported, 81% of the alleged victims were male and 100% of the alleged perpetrators were male (Terry et al. 2004, 69). However, the John Jay Inquiry did not find a correlation between a firm homosexual orientation and male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse. For example, according to the inquiry:

This finding requires some commentary. The Nature and Scope analysis shows that there was an increase in the number of male victims (at the hands of male perpetrators, i.e. priests) in the peak years of abuse, the 1960s and 1970s. This gave rise to two possible hypotheses: (1) that the priests sought out male victims at this time or; (2) that the priests abused the children they had access to, irrespective of whether these children were male or female. In these peak years it is argued that access was mostly to male children – especially to altar servers who could only be male prior to revisions in canon law in 1983 – and therefore, the priests in their study abused the children who were available to them (Terry et al. 2011, 108). Of course, if priests only had access to boys, then there would be few, if any, instances of sexual abuse of girls; after all, opportunity is a necessary condition of committing an offence. However, it would not demonstrate that the priests did not have a sexual preference for boys; after all, motive is also (typically) a necessary condition of committing an offence. Moreover, there is no firm indication that most, or even, many of the victims were altar servers. In the table 5.3 “Nature and Scope: Location Where Victims Met the Priests Who Abused Them” altar servers only account for a small percentage (12.3%) of the alleged victims. Moreover, the number of choir members was less than 1% (Terry et al. 2011, 108). The greater number of victims were first encountered by offending priests in the general church community, at Mass (Terry et al. 2011, 109).

Notwithstanding this inconsistency, the John Jay Inquiry favoured the hypothesis that the male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse in their study were constitutive of situational homosexuality, i.e., they were not acting in accordance with a prior sexual preference for males but rather engaged in sexual acts with males only because opportunities to do so were the only ones available to them. They argue that this claim correlates with another claim they make – that most of these historical offences were typical of regressed (i.e. situational) offenders. Regressed sexual offenders offend against individuals who are available to them and are purely opportunistic in their offending. Moreover, regressed offenders are more likely to be one-off offenders (many of the offenders in the John Jay study were of this type) in contrast to fixated offenders who typically commit multiple acts of child sexual abuse (the minority of offenders in the John Jay study are of this type). The John Jay researchers claim that clerical offenders in the Catholic Church were not driven by a fixation on a certain type of victim. If we accept this is true, we still need to remind ourselves that from the mere fact that a child sexual offender is regressed rather than fixated, it does not follow that the offender does not have a sexual preference/orientation and, in the case of a homosexual child sexual offender, a predisposition to seize opportunities to abuse boys and ignore opportunities to abuse girls. Certainly, it would be wrong to assume that most regressed offenders by virtue of being regressed do not have determinate sexual orientations and, therefore, are neither homosexual, heterosexual nor bisexual in their sexual orientation but simply engage in sexual relations with children (and adults?) of either sex, supposing they are available.

However, the John Jay researchers claim that the situational thesis is consistent with findings relating to the percentage of female victims. They claim that the percentage of female victims increased in the late 1990s and 2000s, when priests had more access to females in the Church (Terry et al. 2011, 106). Yet, this latter claim of increased opportunity is not supported by the data in their reports. For example, there were, proportionately, more female victims in the 1950s than in the 1990s which would appear to discount the argument based on an increase in female altar servers (Terry et al. 2011, 106).

Moreover, from 1950-1999 (almost the entire duration of the scope of the study) the instances of male-on-male child sexual abuse were significantly higher than those of male-on-female instances of child sexual abuse. The only significant change is the last two years of the survey from 2000-02 where 55.2% of the victims were boys and 44.8% of the victims were girls. However, this small slice of the sample is not enough to make a credible claim. To begin with this only represents 2 years as opposed to 50 years. Furthermore, the number of victims in those 2 years was minimal – about 40. This is in contrast to the sample of the other 50 years which included 1000s of cases (Terry et al. 2011, 106).

Moreover, the justifying ‘evidence’ in the John Jay Inquiry contradicts their claims. For instance, the John Jay researchers claim that opportunity plays a significant role in the choice of victims. To support this claim, they include information from Victim Assistance Coordinator and Survivor Surveys. These surveys discuss the access priests had to children including spending extended hours in the children’s homes socializing with the families. This is consistent with John Jay’s own evidence in the Nature and Scope Report. However, this is not consistent with the claim that priests abused boys because they only had access to boys, particularly, altar servers. In addition, Paul Sullins (2018) argues the following, “the data …present a picture of men [Catholic priests] who, when younger boys are replaced by younger girls, prefer older boys rather than younger girls as victims” (36). The case of Fr Bernard, in the IICSA inquiry, is relevant here. He abused boys and then later sexually harassed adult men when he had limited contact with children (IICSA 2018, 59).

The John Jay researchers also claim there has been an increase in homosexual men in the seminary; however, the instances of male homosexual child sexual abuse have decreased. Therefore, they claim that male homosexuality is not related to child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Yet, this is another claim that has been contested. According to Sullins (2018), this claim is false because it relies on a poor (and confused) indicator of the number of homosexual priests, namely, seminarians and ordinands who ‘came out’ i.e., self-reported their homosexuality. But, as Sullins points out, ordinands and seminarians are only a tiny proportion of Catholic priests, and the number of seminarians ‘coming out’ understates the actual number of homosexuals (683). Rather Sullins relies on a Los Angeles Times survey (also used by the John Jay Inquiry for other purposes). Says Sullins (2018): “The share of homosexual men in the priesthood rose from twice that of the general population in the 1950s to eight times the general population in the 1980s. This trend was strongly correlated with increasing child sex abuse” (693). Therefore, he argues that this claim from the John Jay researchers is contested on the grounds that it relies on “subjective clinical estimates” and “second hand narrative reports of apparent homosexual activity in seminaries” that might not be reliable and, even if reliable, not representative (Sullins 2018).

The common-sense approach here must be that self-reporting of homosexuality increased over time when homosexuality was no longer a crime. Moreover, the common -sense approach would suggest that there has been a decrease in homosexual, heterosexual and/or bisexual acts of child sexual abuse in the Church because of a growing awareness of the harm of child sexual abuse and introduced measures to combat it. More on this point in the closing remarks.

To re-iterate, the John Jay researchers claim that most acts of male-on-male child sexual abuse are not the product of a homosexual or bisexual orientation. They argue forcefully that sexual behaviour is not necessarily an indicator of sexual identity (Terry et al. 2011, 62). As already stated, the John Jay Inquiry distinguishes between homosexual acts and homosexual identity and argues that most of the cases of male-on-male child sexual abuse in their report were not perpetrated by men with a homosexual identity but were rather the product of situational homosexuality. The John Jay researchers claim that it is possible, and indeed for the purposes of their argument, common, for a person to participate in a same-sex sexual act without identifying as being homosexual. For instance, “It is therefore possible that, although the victims of priests were most often male, thus defining the acts as homosexual, the priest did not at any time recognize his identity as homosexual” (Terry et al. 2011, 36).

This raises an important point, i.e. generally, scholars have not assumed that male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse imply that the adult is a male homosexual (and certainly not that the child has a homosexual orientation). For instance, in Ruzicka’s (1997) study into clerical abusers it is noted that 8 out of 10 of the perpetrators in the study reported a preference for boys (589-90). However, 7 of the perpetrators identified as being homosexual or bisexual and 3 of the perpetrators identified as being heterosexuals. In broader scholarship, general arguments concerning sexual orientation and sexual preference are not settled and are complicated areas of study. Notably, the very notion of orientation is contested with some groups preferring to speak of sexual fluidity and homosexual acts instead of homosexual orientation. Moreover, it is worth keeping in mind that the thesis that male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse are situational in nature and not connected to a homosexual orientation is disputed by, indeed apparently found to be offensive to, many members of the homosexual community. Generally, the LGBTQI+ community claim that any argument concerning situational homosexuality is largely heteronormative in its outlook. It is their claim that it is heteronormative because it diminishes the homosexual sex act to a sex act that was only entered into because of the lack of a more suitable partner (Cronin 2006). Moreover, evidence from IICSA would seem to challenge the claims made by the John Jay Inquiry. For example, IICSA provides details of the pornographic content that predator monks, who only had access to boys, and who were charged with child sexual abuse, were accessing on the internet, i.e.

Finally, the John Jay Inquiry suggests that those who are confused as to their sexual identity, and not affirmed homosexuals, are at a higher risk of committing child sexual abuse, than those who report as being unambiguously heterosexual or unambiguously homosexual. There is no mention of affirmed bisexual orientation. Notably, priests who were ordained prior to 1960 and who had a confused sexual identity were more likely to abuse than those who were not confused about their sexual identity (Terry et al. 2011, 64). We suggest that it is likely that prior to 1962 many homosexuals – including many homosexual priests – were confused about their sexual identity, given that sodomy was a felony in every state in the USA prior to 1962 and was punishable by a lengthy gaol term. Accordingly, if there is a correlation between priests being confused about their sexual identity and being child sexual abusers, this does not necessarily tell against these priests being homosexuals. Moreover, it is also possible that offenders with a confused sexuality, including priests, were themselves abused. For example, a number of the alleged victims who spoke to the Australian commission of inquiry into child sexual abuse (see section 4.4.) reported their sexuality had been confused as a result of an act of child sexual abuse. We note there is mounting evidence to suggest that men who have been victims of male-on-male child sexual abuse are more likely to be become male-on-male offenders as they mature1.

The John Jay Inquiry claims that more abuse occurred in the 1970’s than any other decade with incidents of child sexual abuse peaking in 1980. Furthermore, the report claims that allegations of abuse that are alleged to have occurred in recent years are relatively small. 89.3% of priests with allegations of child sexual abuse in this study were ordained prior to 1979 (Terry et al. 2004, 5). Hence, the finding that the problem of child sexual abuse, in as much as it involves very large numbers of allegations, is historical. This is not to discount the fact that child sexual abuse still occurs in the Church, and most probably, still occurs in larger numbers than are reported, given delays in reporting child sexual abuse. However, it is to discount the dominant narrative in the media that large numbers of currently serving priests are sex offenders. Take the following quote from the John Jay Inquiry for example:

The John Jay Inquiry argue that the rise of incidents of child sexual abuse in the 1960s and 1970s can be directly attributed to the rise of “deviant” behaviour at this time, such as, drug use, crime, and divorce (Terry et al. 2011, 3). In this context a deviant act is described as an act that is contrary to the principles of the institution. For example, clerical child sexual abuse negates the purpose of the Church as an institution with the purpose of bringing forth grace. Divorce is described, in this context, as an act that is made for personal reasons and for this reason is contrary to the purpose of the institution. Criminal acts are acts that are contrary to societal and legal norms. The John Jay data shows that drug use, crime and divorce in the USA increased by 50% between 1960 and 1980. Moreover, the rise and fall of divorce rates and the rates of homicide and robbery are consonant, that is, stable in 1965, sharply peaking in 1980, and then falling. The spike in divorce rates is significant given that the children of divorced parents are at a higher risk of child sexual abuse than children from stable homes are. It is also worth considering, as mentioned previously, there were a number of paedophile promotion groups operating openly in the 70s. These organisations include, among others, the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) which formed in the seventies. In addition to this and correlated with this, the seventies also saw the influence of French postmodern theorists who argued in favour of child/adult sex. For instance, Michel Foucault, along with other French Intellectuals, including Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, signed a petition in 1977 in response to the imprisonment of three men for sexual crimes against 12-and 13-year-olds. The petition states,

Regarding this case, there were clearly laws in place to protect children from abuse, and the premise that many French people were in favour of child/adult sexual relationships must be rejected. However, the influence of Foucault and other French intellectuals in the gay community was/is significant. For example, queer theory builds on the work of Foucault (among others) and Simone de Beauvoir (1973) is credited with being one of the first gender theorists, i.e. “one is not born a woman; one becomes a woman”.

The John Jay researchers argue that the following factors contributed to the decline in incidents of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA: a growing awareness of the harm of child sexual abuse; the enactment of government laws; a growing understanding of the causes of child sexual abuse; child safety mechanisms in the Catholic Church; better treatment for offenders; and improvements in seminary training (Terry et al. 2011, 3).

The following timeline indicates important dates and periods in relation to (alleged) incidents of child sexual abuse, and the responses of the Catholic Church in the USA in respect of the introduction of child safety measures. This is not an exhaustive list of all of the policies that have been put in place up until this time, nor does it catalogue all of the changes that are currently taking place in response to these inquiries. Instead, this section gives an overview of the history of child-safety measures that have been adopted in the Catholic Church in the USA. It also provides some context for the discussion. For instance, we compare the development of church policies with the development of state regulations. We also note that while this list looks somewhat impressive it does not demonstrate whether church leaders complied with the policies outlined. Evidence from the inquires suggests that policies relating to child sexual abuse were not uniformly applied and it was often the case that the integrity of any given bishop determined how stringently these regulations were adhered to. It is also argued that these policies were often enforced as far as lay offenders were concerned but not in relation to clerical offenders (which is certainly not the case today). Today the Church has stringent child-safety policies, especially by comparison with most other institutions in which children are present in large numbers. For example, it has widely been reported in the inquiries that the Church has invested significant resources to ensure the protection of children.

1970s – There was an increasing awareness of the harm of child sexual abuse amongst academics. However, there was still uncertainly regarding the extent of the harm or even if there was harm in most cases. For example, in 1978 academics R. S. Kempe and C. H. Kempe remarked, “Most sexual molestation appears to do little harm to normal children” (Terry et al. 2011, 96).

1976 – The Servants of the Paraclete opened a treatment programme which included the treatment of disorders associated with child sexual abuse (Sipe n.d.).

1980s – In the broader community there was still little understanding of child sexual abuse. For example, the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers (ATSA) admitted that their understanding of child sexual abuse had been incomplete or false. This is not surprising given that rigorous research had not yet been conducted and effective prevention and treatment strategies were only beginning to emerge (Terry et al. 2011, 79).

– There was an increase in the use of treatment programs, notably specialized sex-offender treatment programs, to treat priests who had abused children. The focus of these treatments was relapse prevention (Terry et al. 2011, 80).

– Researchers began to focus on the trauma of sexual abuse.

1983 – The harm of sexual abuse is reportedly considered among influential psychological practitioners to be a form of post-traumatic stress (Terry et al. 2011, 96).

1980s – The introduction of “Human Formation” in seminary training.

Most of the priests who were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse were trained in seminaries prior to the 1970s. It is argued that the introduction of Human Formation – the development of psychological tools to live a life of celibacy effectively – had a role to play in the decreased number of incidents of child sexual abuse after 1985 (Terry et al. 2011, 5).

1985 – The National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB) began a formal discussion about child sexual abuse (Terry et al. 2011, 75).

– There was a sharp decline in cases of child sexual abuse. This is attributed to activism on the part of victims of clerical abuse, improved awareness of child sexual abuse and improved responses to child sexual abuse on the part of the Catholic Church.

– A common problem in relation to child sexual abuse was that the response differed across dioceses. The John Jay Report claims that at this time the media concentrated its attention on bishops who were performing poorly which engendered the view that the bishops as a whole were not responding effectively to child sexual abuse, despite this not being the case (Terry et al. 2011, 4).

Mid 1980s onwards – The NCCB worked with diocesan leaders to ensure immediate and responsible responses to allegations of child sexual abuse, including prompt psychological treatment for the priests involved. Furthermore, the NCCB began a training program and encouraged the development of explicit policies, and distributed strategies for responding to litigation (Terry et al. 2011, 77).

Late 1980s – Church leaders became sceptical of the claims of psychological treatment centres when they discovered that priests who had been the recipients of treatment had committed new offences (Terry et al. 2011, 80).

1990s – The Child Protection Act of 1990 came into being (Terry et al. 2011, 98).

1991 – The Archdiocese of Chicago commissioned a report on clerical child sexual abuse (Terry et al. 2011, 86).

1992 – The Cardinal’s Commission on Clerical Sexual Misconduct with Minors was made public. Reforms were made by the Chicago Diocese. Priests who were accused of child sexual abuse were removed from ministry. The archdiocese created an independent review board comprised of psychologists, psychiatrists, and lawyers (Kelly 1998, 303-18).

1992 – The Policy on Priests and Sexual Abuse of Children was released by the Office of Media Relations of the United States Catholic Bishops Conference (USCBC). It states: “[W]hen there is even a hint of such an incident, investigate immediately; remove the priest whenever the evidence warrants it; follow the reporting obligations of the civil law; extend pastoral care to the victim and the victim’s family; and seek appropriate treatment for the offender” (Terry et al. 2011, 81).

1992 – The American bishops called for diocesan leaders to use of the “Five Principles” in relation to allegations of child sexual abuse. The Five Principles are as follows:

(1) respond promptly to all allegations of abuse where there is reasonable belief that abuse has occurred; (2) if such an allegation is supported by sufficient evidence, relieve the alleged offender promptly of his ministerial duties and refer him for appropriate medical evaluation and intervention; (3) comply with the obligations of civil law regarding reporting of the incident and cooperating with the investigation; (4) reach out to the victims and their families and communicate sincere commitment to their spiritual and emotional well-being; and (5) within the confines of respect for privacy of the individuals involved, deal as openly as possible with the members of the community.

80% of the dioceses utilized the five principles in some ways. However, they diverged in their use of the principles, and it is generally agreed that the response was poor (Terry et al. 2011, 86).

1993 – The NCCB held a meeting with experts in the field of child sexual abuse. The discussion concerned improving care for victims of child sexual abuse, improved screening of ordinands, improved education and improved guidelines for relapse prevention and reassignment (Kelly 1998, 303-18).

1993 – The Ad Hoc Committee of Sexual Abuse was announced. The mandate of the Ad Hoc Committee was to support victims of clerical abuse and their families and improve screening processes for priests and lay church workers (Terry et al. 2011, 82).

1993-1994 – The Ad Hoc Committee surveyed dioceses and eparchies about their policies for responding to allegations of child sexual abuse. 60% of the dioceses reported they had implemented a policy for handling cases of clerical child sexual abuse (Terry et al. 2011, 86-7).

1994 – 1995 – The Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse released a report on treatment facilities (Terry et al. 2011, 82).

1997 – The Ad Hoc Committee gathered more information about diocesan policies for handling allegations of child sexual abuse. More than half of the dioceses surveyed had a person who had designated responsibility for cases of clergy sexual abuse, most of the dioceses who responded had established a review board and were performing background checks of church workers and volunteers (Terry et al. 2011, 86-7).

2001 – The rate of abuse in 2001 was 56 % less than the rate of abuse in 1992. The rate of decline was greater in the Catholic Church than it was in the broader community (Terry et al. 2011, 13).

2002 – The National Review Board conducted a survey of the dioceses and eparchies. It was discovered that 96% of the dioceses had a public policy regarding measures in relation to child sexual abuse, 81% had a review board, and 68% reported that clergy were defined as mandatory reporters of child sexual abuse in keeping with state regulations (Terry et al. 2011, 86-7).

2002 – The USCCB promulgated the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People at its meeting in June. The purpose of the charter was to address the issue of child sexual abuse by priests within the Catholic Church in the US. Two bodies were created from this charter – the National Review Board and the Office of Child and Youth Protection (OYCP). These bodies shared a mandate to investigate the prevalence of child sexual abuse, the causes of clerical child sexual abuse, and complaints handling procedures in the Catholic Church in the US. Two academic investigations were commissioned in order to satisfy this mandate – The John Jay Report. The National Review Board approached the John Jay College (New York) because it is a secular institution which specializes in criminal justice, criminology and forensic psychology (Terry et al. 2004, 8-9).

2002 – 2004 – The following report was commissioned by the National Review Board and paid for by the USCCB: The Nature and Scope of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States 1950-2002.

2006 – 2010 –The second report is called, The Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010. This report was largely funded by the USCCB. However, there were other financial contributions from Catholic bodies, and the National Institute of Justice (Terry 2017).

For the latest information concerning child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the United States please see the 2023 Annual Report of the USCBC, Report on the Implementation of the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People. (usccb.org). Also see, Jonathon L. Wiggins and Mary L. Gautier, (January 2025), Summary of 20 Years of Data Collected Annually for the CARA Survey of Allegations and Costs for U.S. Catholic Dioceses, Eparchies, and Religious Communities of Men, Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate Georgetown University Washington, DC.

Importantly, Vademecum. On Certain Points of Procedure in Treating Cases of Sexual Abuse of Minors Committed by Clerics was published by the DDF in 2019 and last updated in 2022. Furthermore, Book VI of the Code of Canon Law, titled Penal Sanctions in the Church came into effect at the end of 2021. Importantly, the descriptions of child sexual abuse, and the expectations of church authorities in relation to child sexual abuse allegations in this document are more stringent. For example, there are clearer descriptions of offenses and their respective punishments.

In summation, the Catholic Church in the USA has been working to combat child sexual abuse in the Church for decades and processes that were put in place in the Catholic Church over these years, taken as a whole, evidently have been effective. That said, some processes, notably psychological treatment processes, were not effective and there have been other problematic issues relating to child-safety, e.g. in relation to its causes. These are discussed below.

One measure that was introduced by the Catholic Church to combat child sexual abuse was offender treatment programs. However, as mentioned previously, the effectiveness of the treatment programs for treating child sex offenders is somewhat contentious. According to the John Jay Inquiry many priests who were the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse were put into offender treatment programs (37% in total). In total, 1,624 priests received treatment for sexually abusing children between 1950 and 2002. There were, in total 3,041 instances of treatment – given that many of the priests received more than one form of treatment (Terry et al. 2011, 80). The John Jay researchers claim that the availability of psychological and professional counselling helped to combat child sexual abuse, especially for the group of abusers who only abused many years after ordination in times of job stress and social isolation (Terry et al. 2011, 44)2.

In the article, The Mark of Cain: Reintegrating Pedophiles, Rossetti (1995) claims that of the 300 priests treated at the St. Luke Institute for child sexual abuse, only 2 relapsed. Rossetti argues that clerical offenders generally commit fewer acts of child sexual abuse against fewer victims and do not display the common features of recidivist offenders, e.g. low IQ, lack of insight, choice of young victims etc. (9-18). Fones et al. 1999 claim that treatment had been effective for the 19 clerics who took part in the Program for Professionals sex offender treatment program and who they monitored for one to six years after treatment. It was claimed that most of the participants in the study successfully returned to work as priests and their compulsive sexual urges subsided. It is also claimed that none of the clerics in this study relapsed (25).

Given these findings and correlated findings in other research it has been argued by health professionals that some priests who have abused children should be allowed back into restricted ministry after receiving treatment. For instance, most of the offences in the Catholic Church in the USA were not committed by paedophiles but rather by men with an interest in older boys. While paedophilia is hard, if not impossible, to successfully treat – especially if offenders do not want to change – it has been argued that there are many cases of offenders who have committed a single offence, respond to some treatment or other, and do not re-offend. That said, the whole area of treatment of those who engage in child sexual abuse, whether they are paedophiles or not, is highly contentious within the Catholic Church. Certainly, the Church has been misled by researchers and health-care professionals in the past and, for that matter, in the present. For example, despite the assurances of treatment facilities that offenders were at low risk of re-offending, this was not always the case and bishops became much less likely to endorse the view that treatment was successful in preventing offenders from re-offending (Terry et al. 2011, 80). Not surprisingly, today bishops are resistant to the idea that offenders can be returned to ministry. Certainly, many of these claims should be treated with scepticism. For example, can we trust the self-reporting of a sex offender that he or she did not re-offend?

The John Jay Inquiry noted that bishops and diocesan leaders were confused by church processes for handling priests who were the subject of allegations of child sexual abuse. Moreover, formal options such as laicization, or dismissal from the clerical state were complicated and time-consuming. Therefore, these options were rarely used (Terry et al. 2004, 4). Furthermore, there was a somewhat idiosyncratic approach to child sexual abuse strategies. More often than not the success or failure of these policies was dependent on the particular bishop who was in charge of the diocese. However, according to the John Jay researchers, the response of bishops in the USA to the problem of child sexual abuse was, generally speaking, pro-active.

A further criticism made by the John Jay Inquiry was that the Church in the USA was overly secretive regarding complaint handling processes. This led victim’s groups to call for more transparency in these processes (Terry et al. 2011, 119). Indeed, many of the recommendations of the John Jay Inquiry relate to issues of transparency. Other recommendations concern culture, or in their words, changing “routines”. These ideas are not mutually exclusive.

That said, many of the recommendations made in the John Jay reports were partly implemented at the time that the reports went to print and continue to be implemented. For example, the Catholic Church in the USA created the Dallas Charter in 2002 in order to make church processes relating to child sexual abuse public. The John Jay Inquiry also commended the Church for commissioning the John Jay studies to learn about the problem and to design audit programs (Terry et al. 2011, 122). One interesting recommendation of the John Jay Inquiry concerns educating the public on the scale of child sexual abuse. For example,

The question of whether mandatory celibacy3 is a cause of child sexual abuse is a constant theme in inquiries addressing child sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. Mandatory celibacy is, of course, a requirement of priests and the professed religious in the Roman Catholic Church4. The members of the Expert Group from the Ferns Inquiry (2005) came to the unanimous decision that mandatory celibacy contributed to child sexual abuse (36). The members of the Australian Inquiry were also unanimous in their decision that celibacy was a cause of child sexual abuse. By contrast, the John Jay Inquiry does not accept that celibacy is a cause of child sexual abuse. The following quote outlines the position of the John Jay Inquiry:

Indeed, the statistical findings suggest that mandatory celibacy is a direct cause of child sexual abuse in only very few cases (Sipe 2014). However, there is evidence to suggest that celibacy can be an indirect cause of child sexual abuse. Certainly, celibacy is a direct cause of many psychological problems which are, in turn, correlated with child sexual abuse, e.g. drug and alcohol addiction (Sipe 2014).

That said, there have been many advances in the Church in terms of preparing priests for a healthy celibate life. As far as training is concerned, the John Jay researchers argue that the development of the curriculum, “Human Formation” was a dramatic improvement on this front. For example, it is argued that Human Formation better prepared seminarians to live a celibate life. Moreover, it is argued that this training is successful in terms of reducing child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. For example, it is claimed that priests who were accused of child sexual abuse were less likely to have participated in Human Formation training than priests who were not accused of child sexual abuse. Human Formation was generally introduced into seminaries in the 80s. However, the John Jay Inquiry made a particular note of the developments in Human Formation in 2005. Not only did this curriculum provide better training for men wishing to live a celibate life. It also taught students the theology of living a celibate life. Furthermore, students are expected to have experienced at least two years of celibacy before entering the program.

Of particular interest here, the Human Formation program seeks to discover if candidates for the priesthood have been guilty of abusing children or have a sexual inclination to children. If it is discovered that they do, then, the candidates are disqualified from entering the priesthood. Furthermore, the program seeks to discover other potentially high-risk factors such as, for example, whether the candidate has been sexually abused as a child. Here we note, people who have been sexually abused themselves are at a higher rate of abusing others if they have not worked through their experiences. That said, being the victim of sexual abuse does not necessarily disqualify a person from entering into a formation program. Nevertheless, it would seem prudent from the perspective of child safety to ensure that these candidates have integrated their experiences in a healthy way – as well as being in the interests of the candidates themselves. Moreover, there is extensive training in the Human Formation program regarding child sexual abuse (Terry et al. 2011, 46).

Unlike Ireland and Australia, the USA does not have a national redress scheme that is facilitated by the government or by the Church. Instead, there are different approaches across the different states of the USA. For example, in California six dioceses have joined together to participate in a joint compensation scheme. These schemes have been established, in some cases, only relatively recently. For example, the New York fund was first set up in 2016. Many of these schemes were created with the lifting, in some states of the USA, of the statutes of limitations in relation to the crime of child sexual abuse. There were also projections that the Church would have to pay $4 billion US dollars in upcoming compensation cases (Associated Press 2019). (At the time of writing the Catholic Church in the USA has currently paid over $3 billion dollars in compensation (BishopAccountabily.org n.d) Also, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles has just announced it will pay a further $880 million dollars in compensation (Payne 2024).

Yet, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), the most prominent North American survivor lobby/advocate group, have encouraged complainants not to access compensation schemes but rather to bring their cases to the courts, in a decision that has been met with some suspicion (CBS 2019). For example, criticism of SNAP, emerged in the lawsuit filed by previous SNAP employee Gretchen Hammond. Hammond alleged that SNAP exploits victims of child sexual abuse by treating them solely as potential litigants who might financially boost SNAP and who might financially benefit lawyers who are intimately connected to SNAP (Circuit Court of Cook County 2017). The benefit to SNAP comes through donations from victims of child sexual abuse who have received payments from the Catholic Church and through donations from attorney’s who are referred cases from SNAP. Indeed, it is claimed in the lawsuit that SNAP, in contravention of its tax-exempt status, is in fact, a commercial operation that is said to be “motivated by its directors’ and officers’ personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church” (Circuit Court of Cook Count 2017).

More generally, survivor advocate/ lobby groups around the world have, quite rightly, aggressively pursued the Church on the behalf of legitimate claims and, in many instances, the victims/survivors of child sexual abuse they have supported have been the recipients of substantial payouts. For example, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles paid $774 million to 508 victims of child sexual abuse in a settlement to avoid 15 civil court proceedings (Mozingo and Spano 2007). However, at other times, survivor lobby groups have also aggressively pursued claims that are not legitimate. For example, according to some commentators, witness J who brought a false claim of child sexual abuse against Cardinal George Pell was manipulated by the survivor/victim lobby group, Broken Rites (Friel n.d.b).

In conclusion, the John Jay researchers gathered data from a survey in which 98% of diocesan priests and 80% of religious priests in the USA participated (Terry et al. 2004, 3). Based on the information contained in this survey the John Jay Inquiry produced two reports. The data from the surveys shows that there were 4,392 priests who had been the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse in the period 1950-2002. While these are, for the most part, untested allegations, we can nevertheless conclude that child sexual abuse was a significant, yet historical, problem in the Catholic Church. For instance, 75% of alleged instances of child sexual abuse allegedly took place between 1960 and 1984 (Terry et al. 2004, 27). Moreover, the report also claims that more abuse occurred in the seventies than in any other decade, and that allegations of abuse alleged to have taken place in recent years are relatively few in number. Therefore, we can conclude, as the John Jay researchers concluded, that the problem is essentially an historical one. The total number of allegations against priests over this period is 10,667. Of note, the overwhelming percentage of allegations were of male-to-male child sexual abuse. However, only 2% of the priests who allegedly engaged in child sexual abuse could be classified as paedophiles. These above findings are in contrast to many media reports of child sexual abuse which claim that large numbers of currently serving priests are paedophiles.

The John Jay Report concluded that there were many factors that would reasonably be assumed to contribute to the decline of child sexual abuse including the enactment of government laws etc. Moreover, it is clear that measures introduced by the Catholic Church in response to the problem were, in large part, effective. These included training programs and child safety mechanisms. On the other hand, there were multiple failures, including referring repeat offenders to ineffective treatment programs. That said, failures of the Catholic Church to respond in a timely manner were due, at least in part, to delayed reporting of acts of child sexual abuse; allegations of child sexual abuse were often made decades after the alleged event took place. Two issues of concern regarding this inquiry, and indeed all of the inquiries addressed in this book, are the definition of a child as under the age of 18 (or 21 in the case of the French Inquiry) without recognising that the age of consent is lower and the very broad definitions of child sexual abuse used. We note, these definitions are often contrary to legal definitions.

However, notwithstanding some of the shortcomings of the John Jay Inquiry this inquiry must be commended for its contextual approach and its focus on the causes of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in addition to the scope of the problem. Studies of child sexual abuse have benefited greatly from the John Jay Inquiry due, in large part, to the analytical detail in its two reports. For example, the John Jay Inquiry grouped allegations of child sexual abuse into 20 categories according to the seriousness of the allegations. Furthermore, the John Jay Inquiry made novel and workable recommendations based on the experience of the researchers in the criminal justice arena, e.g. there are recommendations on how to reduce the opportunity for predators to offend.

The Pennsylvania 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury report into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is included in this book because of the size of the inquiry (it subpoenaed half a million documents), the media attention it received, but also because of the controversy surrounding the inquiry. Importantly, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered parts of the inquiry to be permanently redacted. This order was made in response to the concerns of eleven appellants who claimed the report contained material that was false and/or misleading. We discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to permanently redact the report at length later in this analysis. First, it is helpful to briefly describe the role of a grand jury. A grand jury is in certain respects like any other jury. For instance, it is a group of randomly selected citizens who are summoned by a court to perform a task. However, unlike in a criminal case there is no presiding judge in a grand jury investigation and the grand jury’s role is merely as an investigative body and not as an adjudicative body. Their role is ordinarily to determine whether there is sufficient evidence for a criminal trial. The ensuing criminal trial is an essential feature of a truth-finding exercise because, unlike in grand jury investigations, a criminal trial allows for cross-examination and the introduction of exculpatory evidence. However, in the case of this grand jury there was a complication in as much as the crimes that were being investigated were past the statute of limitations, and therefore, could not be heard in a criminal trial.

The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report is very different from the other reports in this book. While the other inquiries have an equal mix of case studies and analyses, the Grand Jury Report focuses mainly on the presentation of case studies and does not provide detailed, let alone comprehensive, analyses of relevant issues. For example, in a document that is 1356 pages long, only 10 pages are devoted to a discussion of the development of safeguarding practices in the Church. A further 8 pages are devoted to recommendations. As our analysis is primarily concerned with the analysis of data related to child sexual abuse, we do not discuss the case studies at length. However, it is important to stress at the outset of this discussion that there is sufficient evidence provided in this report to demonstrate that many instances of child sexual abuse occurred in the dioceses of Pennsylvania. Moreover, these cases were often handled poorly. That said, as will become clear, the report of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury lacks objectivity, went beyond its mandate, and in many instances violated the legally enshrined natural rights of those accused of child sexual abuse. For example, the report names and shames accused persons notwithstanding the fact that these persons had not undergone an adequate process of investigation and adjudication in which they had the opportunity to defend themselves against the accusations levelled at them.

The intention of the inquiry is clearly stated in the introductory statement. It is as follows:

Hence, from the outset of the report the Grand Jury signalled its intention to be an adjudicative body and not merely an investigative body. But how can a body be legitimately adjudicative without recourse to cross-examination of witnesses by the accused (or their legal representatives) and without the introduction of exculpatory evidence? Instead, the Grand Jury decided to punish alleged offenders on the basis of, in many instances, unproven allegations; indeed, on the basis of allegations that will never be tested in a court of law. Clearly, the jurors did not take into consideration the damaging consequences of false allegations. So, the question must be asked: why did the Grand Jury decide to go beyond its remit? Perhaps the answer to this question can be inferred from their own statement:

Should we then conclude that their decision to go beyond their remit was motivated in part by moral indignation at the heinous crimes allegedly committed and in part by a desire to ensure that their time on the grand jury was not spent in vain? At any rate, their decision to go beyond their remit and engage in adjudication was improper. Indeed, it was a morally wrong and unjustified decision, given that in doing so they did not cross-examine witnesses, consider exculpatory evidence or otherwise enable the accused to defend themselves. In short, the Grand Jury engaged in an adjudicative process that denied natural justice to those accused of very serious crimes and, thereafter, named and shamed them.

The Pennsylvania 40th Statewide Investigating Grand Jury was convened in 2016 (after the John Jay Report and with the benefit of its findings). The Attorney General of Pennsylvania initiated the proceedings in order to investigate child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church and the handling of cases of child sexual abuse in the Church (Saylor 2018, 2). The Grand Jury were assigned the task of investigating child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in six dioceses – Allentown, Eire, Greensburg, Pittsburgh and Scranton. It was a comprehensive investigation that was primarily based on the Church’s own documents (half a million were subpoenaed). The Grand Jury heard the testimony of dozens of witnesses (but not witnesses for the accused). The report contains allegations against 300 priests (40th SIGJR 2018, 9). Two priests were sent for presentment (their information was passed on to the courts). “Dozens” would have been sent for presentment, if the statute of limitations did not prevent the inquiry from doing so (40th SIGJR 2018, 308). There could not be criminal trials in the majority of cases because the accused priests were dead (40th SIGJR 2018, 12). Most of the alleged acts of child sexual were said to have taken place before the 2000’s (40th SIGJR 2018, 9). The inquiry claimed the Church had improved its response to allegations of child sexual abuse in the fifteen years prior to the inquiry (40th SIGJR 2018, 6).

The inquiry identified more than a thousand alleged victims most of whom were boys. However, we are not given the precise numbers. Furthermore, there are imprecise details concerning the ages of the alleged victims, “Some were teens; many were prepubescent” (40th SIGJR 2018, 1). Similarly, the report is imprecise concerning the nature of the alleged acts, “Some were made to masturbate their assailants, or were groped by them. Some were raped orally, some vaginally, some anally” (40th SIGJR 2018, 1). Here, Peter Steinfels is correct in criticising the lack of sophistication and precision in this report, especially in the light of the detail provided in most of the other reports discussed in this book. He points out that in the Pennsylvania Inquiry there is no information about: (1) the total number of priests in the dioceses investigated; (2) changes in statistical patterns of the rates of abuse over time; (3) comparisons to non-Catholic institutions; (4) the problems that arise from delays in reporting, e.g., evidential problems; and (5) the historical context e.g. in terms of the level of general awareness of child sexual abuse (Steinfels 2019).

In the commentary in the introduction the only claim the inquiry makes with any precision is arguably false. It concerns the treatment of those who made child sexual abuse complaints: “…all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all” (40th SIGJR 2018, 1). This statement is contested. Indeed, there is evidence in the report which suggests it is not true. For example, these excerpts are from letters addressed to Bishop Trautman by victims of child sexual abuse. “Finally My Dear Bishop, If I can call you a friend, I believe God gave me the means to a cure through you, I have been with just a handful of people in my travels that you can feel they are God’s best work and are here to teach his ways. You are one of them and I thank the Dear Lord each day knowing that you are there if I need to talk”. Or, “Your prompt attention, kindness and compassion as the Ordinary of the Diocese of Eire is appreciated. Words alone cannot describe my gratitude for your generous support” (40th SIGJR 2018, 983). Photocopies of these letters were given to the inquiry and are in the report. More importantly, Bishop Trautman removed 16 priests due to child sexual abuse findings or findings of inappropriate dealings with children (40th SIGJR 2018 986). So, it is evident that the previous comment by the Grand Jury is incorrect. On this point, Steinfels has the following to say:

This is not to suggest that the letters addressed to Bishop Trautman from victims of child sexual abuse are necessarily representative. Yet, it is to suggest that the language in this report is imprecise and sometimes inaccurate. Moreover, there is evidence of bias and, overall, the absence of an appropriately forensic mode of presentation. As we have seen from the other inquiries, the responses of the Church to victims of child sexual abuse were frequently inconsistent and varied from diocese to diocese. Some complaints were treated respectfully and appropriately; many were not. However, it needs to be kept in mind that many, perhaps most, complaints were received many years, indeed often many decades, after the alleged offences took place. What the overall picture is in any particular diocese or country is a matter for careful scrutiny and analysis of the data and other facts available. Unfortunately, the Pennsylvania Inquiry does not meet this standard, as will become clear.

One of the reports most prominent findings is that the Church was secretive when handling child sexual abuse complaints. For example, the grand jurors mention that complaints were locked in a place called the secret archive, which only the bishop had access to. On the face of it, this practice would seem to be reasonable given it is not unusual for professionals to have confidential or sensitive files. Indeed, nearly every professional body has some confidential files in a locked cabinet or the like. However, the Grand Jury argues that the purpose of the Church’s secret archive was to conceal criminal activity. In this respect the Church’s confidential files were deemed to be different from those routinely held by other professional organisations.

For the Grand Jury the processes in the Church regarding complaints handling were “a playbook for concealing the truth” (40th SIGJR 2018, 3). For example, they claim it was standard to write in the report of a priest who was accused of child sexual abuse that he had “inappropriate contact”, or “boundary issues” when the act was in fact a rape. Furthermore, the inquiry argues that fellow priests were asked to investigate allegations and ask “inadequate questions” about suspected predators and that this was done in order to conceal the truth. Similarly, the Grand Jury suggests the only reason suspected predator priests were sent to psychiatric treatment centres was to give the “appearance of integrity”. For example, it is claimed that the Church “Allow[ed] these experts to “diagnose” whether the priest was a paedophile, based largely on the priest’s “self -reports,” and regardless of whether the priest had actually engaged in sexual contact with a child” (40th SIGJR 2018, 3). (Please note that, as mentioned in, for instance, the John Jay Inquiry, paedophilic behaviour is defined in the following terms, “the exclusive presence of two or more victims under the age of eleven.” Hence, a child abuser is not necessarily also a paedophile). A final theory the Grand Jury advances is that bishops not only dissuaded victims from reporting abuse to the police they were also successful in persuading the police to terminate investigations (40th SIGJR 2018, 67).

There is a lot to unpack here. If it is being suggested that everybody in the Church who dealt with priests who were accused of child sexual abuse, knew of a common code and worked systematically to conceal criminal offences, then the Grand Jury are putting forth a conspiracy theory of some magnitude. It is also inconsistent with the other inquiries. The truth would seem to be that some church-workers and bishops did try to conceal instances of child sexual abuse but most did not. We argue there is more nuance to these cases than the Grand Jury has allowed for. For example, if crimes of child sexual abuse were concealed in documents, this concealment of meaningful information can also provide a defence for some bishops. We have examples of this in the other inquiries. The defence is as follows: Bishop B takes over Bishop A’s position when Bishop A retires. Bishop B looks at a case file in the secret (i.e. confidential) archive and discovers that Priest A had a boundary violation with a parishioner. The attending therapist said Priest A was suitable for parish work. In light of this information Bishop B feels confident to keep Priest A in parish work. However, Priest A, in fact, raped a youth. Indeed, Priest A raped another youth in the new parish. In this scenario Bishop A is guilty of concealing serious child sexual abuse and may be subject to criminal charges, depending on time and location. There is no excuse for this behaviour. The therapist is similarly negligent and should not be working in this capacity. However, what of Bishop B? Bishop B may be guilty of not inquiring further into the nature of the boundary violation. However, the guilt in this case is mitigated. The point of this hypothetical example is to show that these cases are not always straight-forward.

A further criticism made was that congregations were not told why a predator priest was removed from the priesthood. This would seem to be a reasonable criticism, especially if the predator priest’s, now former, parishioners intended to remain in contact with the priest, and if they had children who would also be in contact with the priest. However, it would seem this argument is also not as straight-forward as the Grand Jury presents it. For example, and regarding not making the names of alleged or proven offenders public, Trautman claims, in part, his decision not to publish the names of offenders was at the request of some victims of child sexual abuse. The victims in question informed Trautman that the publication of the names of offending priests would allow people to identify themselves as the victims of these priests and this would undermine their processes of recovery. Furthermore, Trautman argues there is no law that requires the publication of names of suspected or proven offenders. On this issue Steinfels makes an interesting point:

Certainly, this criticism by the Grand Jury, that suspected predator priests are not publicized, is a little ironic given the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered parts of this very inquiry to be redacted to protect persons who were the subject of unproven allegations. However, a balance must be established here to keep children safe. The bishop was not legally obliged to publicise the names of suspected or proven offenders. However, surely there is a moral obligation, at least in the case of proven habitual offenders, to alert parishioners to the risks.

Yet, what of the complaint that priests who were known offenders were housed by the Church and given living expenses? As we have argued in relation to the Irish Inquiry, the Church did have, and continues to have, a practice of monitoring priests who are the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse. The priests in question have either not been convicted of child sexual abuse in a court of law because, presumably (but unfortunately, as we have seen, in many cases), there is insufficient evidence to do so; or they have been convicted but have served their sentence. These priests, who are the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse, are often housed in monasteries and residential homes with many restrictions placed upon them. For example, a priest may not be allowed to leave the confines of a monastery he is housed in. In Ireland the police and the Health Department endorsed this practice. Indeed, the Irish Inquiry remarked, “The Commission has already noted in its report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin that monitoring of sex abusers is very difficult and that there is greater monitoring of clerical child sex abusers than any other child sex abusers” (DACI 2009, 17).

A further complaint concerns the movement of priests from one location to another. Yet, this is not as straight-forward as it would appear either. The John Jay Inquiry argues that the temporal distribution of allegations of child sexual abuse confuses the argument. Here it is worth repeating the following quote:

Of course, this is not to say this was always the case, and certainly there is evidence that priests were moved to different ministries when it was known or suspected they were a risk to children. However, an inquiry of this magnitude should be aware of the complexities of these cases.

Furthermore, Bishop Trautman moved some of the priests who were alleged to have abused children multiple times to ministries where children were not present. Ultimately, one of the priests was defrocked. Trautman argues that none of these priests were known to have reoffended (40th SIGJR 2018, 995). Here it may be the case that Trautman’s judgement was very good, and he was successful in preventing children, or others, from being abused by known or suspected predators. However, this is a fraught area. For example, the obvious concern is that children will, at times, be present in places where they are not habitually present. This is often the case with universities which are essentially adults only institutions in terms of their staff and students, but which may have children present on their campuses for one reason or another. A further concern is child sexual abusers who also abuse adults. As we mentioned in relation to the Irish Inquiry, there is evidence to suggest that some sexual offenders do not have an age preference and will abuse both children and the elderly (Lea et al. 2010, 13). A final thought concerns the question of the suitability of a person who has abused multiple children to even be a priest. That said, there is a further complexity concerning suspected but not proven abusers.

We note that there has been no response from the police regarding allegations made by the Grand Jury that they did not charge suspected child sexual offenders that should have been charged, and did not do so, not for lack of evidence, but rather because church officials asked them not to. However, these allegations would surely be worthy of further investigation since, if true, it would indicate significant corruption by the police officers in question.

As mentioned in the introduction the Grand Jury did not make many recommendations. Here we discuss the main recommendations it did make.

The inquiry claims that, up until the end of the 20th century, the dioceses in Pennsylvania developed processes for covering up child sexual abuse (40th SIGJR 2018, 297). Yet, this claim is inconsistent with the findings of the John Jay Report regarding the USA as a whole and, if true, would mean that Pennsylvania had somehow evaded child safeguarding measures put in place by the Catholic Church in the rest of the USA. Please see section 2.2.8 for more information regarding national safeguarding efforts from the John Jay Report. Some of the measures listed there include: In 1985 the NCCB began a formal discussion about child sexual abuse; Mid 1980s onwards – The NCCB worked with diocesan leaders to ensure immediate and responsible responses to allegations of child sexual abuse, including the implementation of a training program and encouraged the development of explicit policies, and distributed strategies for responding to litigation; In 1991 the Cardinal’s Commission on Clerical Sexual Misconduct with Minors was made public; In 1992 the Policy on Priests and Sexual Abuse of Children was released by the Office of Media Relations of the USCBC. It states: “[W]hen there is even a hint of such an incident, investigate immediately; remove the priest whenever the evidence warrants it; follow the reporting obligations of the civil law; extend pastoral care to the victim and the victim’s family; and seek appropriate treatment for the offenders: In 1992 the American bishops called for diocesan leaders to use the ‘Five Principles’ in relation to allegations of child sexual abuse. The Five Principles are as follows:

(1) respond promptly to all allegations of abuse where there is reasonable belief that abuse has occurred; (2) if such an allegation is supported by sufficient evidence, relieve the alleged offender promptly of his ministerial duties and refer him for appropriate medical evaluation and intervention; (3) comply with the obligations of civil law regarding reporting of the incident and cooperating with the investigation; (4) reach out to the victims and their families and communicate sincere commitment to their spiritual and emotional well-being; and (5) within the confines of respect for privacy of the individuals involved, deal as openly as possible with the members of the community.

In 1992 the NCCB held a meeting with experts in the field of child sexual abuse. The discussion concerned improving care for victims of child sexual abuse, improved screening of ordinands, improved education and improved guidelines for relapse prevention and reassignment; In 1993 The Ad Hoc Committee of Sexual Abuse was announced. The mandate of the Ad Hoc Committee was to support victims of clerical abuse and their families and improve screening processes for priests and lay church workers. In 1997 the Ad Hoc Committee gathered more information about diocesan policies for handling allegations of child sexual abuse. At the time of the John Jay Report, more than half of the dioceses surveyed had a person who had designated responsibility for cases of clergy sexual abuse, most of the dioceses who responded had established a review board and were performing background checks of church workers and volunteers.

It would appear the dioceses in Pennsylvania moved on child safety at a similar rate. That is, safeguarding policies began in the mid-1990s and have been updated regularly since that time. For the dioceses in Pennsylvania the greatest change was the introduction of the “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People”, which was produced in 2002 by the USCCB (40th SIGJR 2018, 302). It has policies relating to investigating allegations, suspending priests who are accused of child sexual abuse, removing priests from ministry if allegations are proven, mandatory reporting to the police, outreach to victims, screening of all church workers who come into contact with children, etc. According to Steinfels the allegations against at least one-third of the alleged offenders were reported after 2002 when there was an established policy to remove priests from active ministry (Steinfels 2019), which would seem to fly in the face of the Grand Jury’s statement “…all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all” (40th SIGJR 2018, 1).

On the 27th of July 2018 the Supreme Court issued the first of two rulings concerning the Grand Jury Report. The petitioners were people who were named in the report and who challenged the public release of the report. They claimed that the findings of the report were not supported by a “preponderance of evidence” (a required standard of a grand jury) and that the evidence in relation to them was false or misleading. As such, they argued that they had been denied due process of law and said that the release of the findings to the public would damage their reputations in violation of their constitutional rights (Saylor 2018, 1). The petitioners had already asked the supervising judge of the Grand Jury to remove information about them because they could demonstrate that it was false, misleading or was not supported by evidence. For example,

They did not request that the publication of the document be blocked in its entirety (Saylor 2018, 6). Instead, the petitioners asked the judge for a pre-deprivation hearing before him, which would allow them to present their evidence. However, the supervising judge decided this would impose an unreasonable burden on the Commonwealth, because it would require cross-examination of witnesses and the presentation of new evidence (Saylor 2018, 9). He responded that it was sufficient for the accused to provide a letter of response (Saylor 2018, 8). (As mentioned previously, due to the statute of limitations most of the appellants were not eligible to go to trial).

On the other hand, the Supreme Court decided that the report from the Grand Jury was not “couched in conventional “investigatory” terms,” and went beyond its remit. As mentioned in the introduction, grand juries are not adjudicative bodies. Importantly, the Supreme Court concluded that the Grand Jury did not consider the evidence in terms of a probable cause standard. Rather, it assumed that all of the accused were guilty and, more specifically, did so without meeting the probable cause standard and without the benefit of a trial to prove their guilt. This is evident in the language used. For example,

It is worth noting here that the Supreme Court argued grand jury processes are controversial. For example, a grand jury can hear any piece of evidence including hearsay and rumours in secret without the opportunity of cross-examination. Indeed, a grand jury is not obligated to hear exculpatory evidence (Saylor 2018, 12). As a consequence, false testimony can go undetected (Saylor 2018, 13). Moreover, the Supreme Court wondered why the attorney for the Commonwealth did not want to present the testimonies of living individuals to the grand jurors who surely would have benefitted in their quest for the truth. We note here that jurors are responsible for truth finding and the administration of justice. They are not permitted to utilise grand jury investigations for the purposes of activism (Saylor 2018, 21).

It was the view of the Supreme Court that simply appending a written response, as was suggested by way of dealing with the problem presented by the petitioners, to the end of a 900-page report (that is primarily a compilation of cases of child sexual abuse in the Church) would not be sufficient to protect the appellants’ reputations because the report is lengthy and pertains to a subject matter that is “incendiary” (Saylor 2018, 22). Furthermore, the written response would only admit to hearsay and not have the weight of evidence that has been tested (such as in a court of law). In this first hearing the Supreme Court ordered that the appellants’ details be temporarily excised by the Grand Jury until such a time as a resolution could be reached (Saylor 2018, 25, 27). In summation:

On September the 26th 2018 a second Supreme Court judgement was released stating that no remedy could be found for the problems outlined in the first judgement. Hence, it was necessary to order the permanent redaction of any material that would identify the appellants in order to protect their constitutional right to secure their reputation (Todd 2018, 1). In the previous judgement redaction was only a temporary measure.

An interesting feature of the second judgement concerns evidence that the Attorney General was biased. For example, in response to the appellants’ petitions he sent a letter to Pope Francis asking the Catholic leader to “direct church leaders to follow the path you charted at the Seminary in 2015 and abandon their destructive efforts to silence the survivors” (Todd 2018, 8). Furthermore, it is claimed he made incendiary statements at a press conference concerning the petitioners. When asked about the claims of inaccuracies in the report he suggested that their claims were untrustworthy because of “who they are and…their backgrounds” (Todd 2018, 9). The petitioners also claim the Attorney General leaked grand jury information on two separate occasions, notwithstanding the information was protected from disclosure by the Supreme Court’s redaction order. The Attorney General denies this allegation (Todd 2018, 9 ft 11).

Ultimately the Supreme Court ordered that there was no other alternative to protect the constitutional right of the petitioners other than to, as mentioned previously, make the temporary redactions from the first hearing permanent. They argued:

As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, the Pennsylvania Report is, primarily, a large collection of allegations of child sexual abuse against members of the Catholic Church. Many of these allegations are compelling. There are further allegations of child sexual abuse complaints that were not handled well. In some cases, bishops knew priests had abused children and did not report this to the police or take other steps to protect children. For these offences the Church stands condemned. However, there are also cases where allegations are not supported by evidence, or worse, there are claims of abuse that are highly implausible (fewer allegations are of this type). This is not out of the ordinary. In any large-scale inquiry with high numbers of allegations, there is always a suite of allegations – in this case as far as the quality of the claims is concerned. This is not a controversial remark. What is disturbing in this case is the grand jurors lack of awareness of the possibility of false claims and the harm that is done to those who are wrongly accused of child sexual abuse. Indeed, it could be argued that the wrongfulness of, and harm done by, false allegations of child sexual abuse can in some instances be equal to, or even worse than, the wrongfulness or, and harm done by, some instances of child sexual abuse. Consider a priest who is falsely accused of raping a child and who is publicly named and shamed. Is this not potentially more harmful to that priest than the harm done to a 16-year-old adolescent who is subjected to an unwanted act of overclothing sexual touching by his priest? At any rate, while it goes without saying that children need to be protected from the scourge of child sexual abuse, it is also the case that priests and others need to be protected from the serious harms unjustly inflicted by false allegations of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, as the Supreme Court made clear, priests who are the victims of false allegations, made to these inquiries, have little chance of extricating themselves as innocent victims from the collective rage generated by the incendiary claims of large-scale child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

This analysis concerns the inquiry of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRCC) into abuse in Christian-run residential schools. This inquiry is similar to the other inquiries in this book in as much as it discusses the poor living conditions of the schools (also a focus of the Irish Inquiry), physical abuse and sexual abuse. However, its focus on cultural assimilation sets it apart from the other inquiries in this book. Moreover, as this book is concerned with child sexual abuse in Catholic schools, churches and agencies, we do not discuss, other than tangentially, claims relating to other types of abuse such as the many allegations of physical abuse. Nor do we discuss the harms caused by cultural assimilation. Certainly, we recognise the harm that has been done to the Indigenous peoples of Canada on this front. We do discuss sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Canada. However, in a deviation from our focus in the other inquiries we also discuss an area of investigation that is not directly concerned with child sexual abuse as such; we analyse claims of an unacceptably high rate of deaths amongst the cohort of children in the residential schools run by the Catholic Church, including claims that the causes of death of nearly 2,000 children were not recorded. Furthermore, we discuss the related claims of missing children and mass graves of children on the sites of the residential schools.

These claims of missing children and mass graves have not only received widespread media attention, they are being widely taken to be true, notwithstanding that they are unproven. Indeed, there is a view that is not reported in the inquiries but has, nevertheless, made its way into the minds of many people in the general public, that, the children were murdered by people working for the Catholic Church. Hence, these claims have resulted not only in immense reputational damage to the Catholic Church but also in the destruction of dozens of church buildings across Canada in apparent revenge for these murders.

Prior to 1883 the Catholic Church in Canada operated a number of boarding schools for Aboriginal people. Many of these schools received small grants from the Federal Government (TRCC 2015a, 3). However, from 1883 until 1969 the church-run residential schools partnered with the Canadian Government. The Federal Government utilized the residential schools in order to implement policies and legislation that were designed to assimilate Indigenous people into Euro-Christian culture (TRCC 2015b, 25). This assimilation is deemed to be “cultural genocide” by the writers of the Canadian report.

It is generally agreed the schools were negligent in their care for the children they were entrusted with. Moreover, the Catholic Church and the Federal Government share the blame for the neglect. For example, the Federal Government did not set and maintain standards, it under-funded the schools, and it failed to provide adequate oversight of the schools to ensure they were adequately discharging their educational and other responsibilities to the children. This underfunding and lack of oversight resulted in unhealthy living conditions for the children at the schools (Archdiocese of Toronto 2021, 3). The Church failed to advocate for the children who were in its care and church workers were involved in individual instances of abuse. For example, and of interest to this work, priests were accused of sexual abuse of some of these children. The arrangement between the Church and the government was in place until 1969 (TRCC 2015b, 25). The Commission claims 150,000 children attended these schools. Moreover, the Indian Residential School Settlement Agreement (IRSSA) identified 139 residential schools 46% (64 schools) of which were operated by Catholic entities. 16 of 70 Catholic dioceses in Canada, and three dozen religious communities were linked to the schools (Archdiocese of Toronto 2021, 2).

The conditions of the schools were brought to light in thousands of court cases against the schools that led to the largest class-action lawsuit that Canada has ever seen. This led to the creation of the TRCC. Notably, the TRCC was established by the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement, which settled the class actions (in as much as it established a means for compensation). The Commission spent six years travelling to all parts of Canada to hear from 6,000 former students about abuse in the schools (TRCC 2015a, v).

The data regarding child sexual abuse concerns the period from 1940 until the closure of the schools in 1998 (TRCC 2015c, 12). However, it must be noted that in 1969 the government took full control of the schools and church involvement ceased at that time (TRCC 2015c, 10). The figures concerning child sexual abuse come from three different sources: (1) the documentary record, which contains documents pertaining to prosecutions for abuse; (2) statements of former students, and; (3) the data from the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) and the Common Experience Payment (CEP) program. These programs were established by IRSSA in order to compensate former students for sexual and physical abuse and other wrongful acts (TRCC 2015c, 399). The compensation was paid to students who attended the residential schools as boarders, students who went to the residential schools as day students, or to anybody who was under twenty-one when the abuse occurred and was legitimately participating in school activities. The alleged abuse was committed by government and church appointed staff, other adults who were legally on the premises, or by fellow students (TRCC 2015c, 400).

As of January 3, 2015, 37,951 compensation claims relating to sexual, physical or other types of abuse were made to the IAP. 30,939 cases were resolved by the end of 2014. In total $2,690,000,000 (USD) has been awarded in compensation. Compensation payouts were made to 48% of the ex-students who were eligible to make the claims (this number excludes ex-students who died prior to May 2005) (TRCC 2015c, 401). As of the 30th of September 2013, 8,470 claims of abuse were made to the IAP concerning alleged abuse of students by other students. This was one-third of the allegations made at that time (in total there were 26,261 claims) (TRCC 2015c, 410). Regarding the gender of the alleged victims, men were responsible for 51.5% of the claims and women were responsible for 48.5% of the claims (TRCC 2015c, 406). Unfortunately, figures that relate solely to sexual abuse are not available. Therefore, it cannot be determined whether there was a preponderance of male-on-male sexual abuse among instances of sexual abuse of students, as has been found in the other inquiries analysed in this book.

The report argues that the large number of compensation claims that have been made to the IAP and CEP demonstrate that abuse, including sexual abuse, was widespread in the residential school system. Furthermore, the seriousness of the alleged acts of abuse can be determined by the size of the compensation payments (up until the 30th of September 2014). 14% of the claims relate to the least serious acts of abuse with the least damaging consequences (claims from $1 – $49,999). 28% of claims concern compensation in the next bracket $50,000 to $99,999. 36% of claims concern claims in the bracket $100,000 – $149,999. 15% of claims concern claims in the bracket $150,000 – $199,999. 6% of claims relate to the most serious forms of abuse with the most damaging effects ($200,00 +) (TRCC 2015c, 405). Examples of compensation payouts for the least serious category of abuse (in as much as they relate to child sexual abuse) are payouts for the following offences: any act of touching a child that is deemed to be sexual in nature; the act of an adult exposing himself or herself; naked photographs taken of a child; one or more incidents of fondling or kissing a child (TRCC 2015c, 402). The harm that is attributed to this kind of abuse is considered to be “modest detrimental impact”. The harm is said to be “occasional short term” and includes anxiety, humiliation, bed-wetting, aggression etc. (TRCC 2015c, 404). Examples of compensation payouts in the most serious category (that relate to child sexual abuse) include payouts for the following offences: “repeated, persistent incidents of anal or vaginal intercourse” and “repeated, persistent incidents of anal/vaginal penetration with an object” (TRCC 2015c, 402). The harm that is attributed to this kind of abuse is “continued harm resulting in serious dysfunction” and includes, personality disorders, psychotic disorganisation, loss of ego boundaries, self-harm, suicidal tendencies, inability to form or maintain personal relationships etc. (TRCC 2015c, 403). Males were more likely to make claims of serious abuse than women. For example, in the most serious category of abuse males made 1,393 claims while females made 649 claims (TRCC 2015c, 407).

It is argued, notwithstanding that there were no prosecutions for acts of child sexual abuse that allegedly occurred in the years from 1867 – 1939, that it is evident child sexual abuse occurred at the schools in these years. It is claimed that victim testimonies of sexual abuse are powerful evidence that abuse occurred. Furthermore, it is argued these acts of alleged child sexual abuse were not prosecuted because government and church workers did not report the allegations to police. At times alleged offenders were not reported to the police because government and church workers believed the denials of the alleged perpetrators, at other times, the children’s allegations were believed, however, the alleged offender was permitted to remain at the school (TRCC 2015b, 560).

Further evidence of abuse, and failure to handle abuse complaints effectively, appears in documentation of abuse and prosecution of abuse. For example, in the 1950s complaints of abuse (it is unspecified if this is sexual abuse or a different kind of abuse) were made to the principal of the Lower Post school in British Columbia against two men. The complainants allege no action was taken at the time. However, one man was convicted many years later for abuse committed at the school. The other man died while he was being prosecuted for abuse that was alleged to have happened at the school. In Saskatchewan a school engineer kept his employment with the school after he was convicted of assaulting a female student. In 1956 a senior teacher investigated complaints concerning sexual impropriety that were made against the principal of the Gordon’s School – the complaints were not reported to the police or to Indian Affairs (TRCC 2015c, 413). In 1966 the Qu’Appelle school in Saskatchewan hired a man who had been convicted of a sexual assault just months earlier. In 1974 a school principal in British Columbia hired a man who was known to have been convicted of molesting boys to be the school’s night watchman. There are more cases of this sort in the report (TRCC 2015c, 414).

Based on the evidence just presented the Commission makes a case that the churches and the government failed to protect children when they knew there was the potential for abuse. Furthermore, the inquiry argues that resources were the main reason safeguarding did not take place. For example, staff were not adequately screened or monitored because of the costs involved. Furthermore, it is claimed the churches were not able to offer competitive salaries because government funding was so low. As a consequence of this, the quality of the staff was poor (TRCC 2015c, 412).

Stories of child sexual and physical abuse, and indeed of murder, in the residential school system in Canada are clearly profoundly upsetting for Indigenous peoples and sensationalistic media reporting generates moral outrage in the broader community. However, it is of the first importance to establish facts. Depending on the facts, moral outrage, and calls for action might or might not be justified. What can be said with some degree of certainty is that the Government of Canada did put in place a program of assimilation that was harmful to Indigenous peoples. There is also evidence of abuse in the residential schools, including child sexual abuse, which is the focus of this book. On the other hand, there is no good, let alone decisive, evidence to suggest that children were murdered at the Kamloops residential school (or any other Catholic-run residential school, for that matter). However, there is a lesson to be learnt here concerning the ease with which serious harm can be done to individuals and institutions, including the Catholic Church, as a result of false or unproven allegations, sensationalistic, misleading media reports and, more generally, a cavalier attitude to evidence-based truth-telling on the part of those advocating an otherwise worthy cause.

This section provides an analysis of the findings of the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (the Australian Inquiry), as far as they relate to the Catholic Church in Australia. In the course of providing this analysis, as with the other inquiries, we discuss the extent of the alleged offences, the historical nature of the alleged offences, the nature of the alleged offences, the profiles of the alleged offenders that emerged, and the Catholic Church’s response to the problem of child sexual abuse in its institutions. We also discuss some of the shortcomings of the Australian Inquiry, e.g. its investigative processes. Since a good deal of the media reporting of the Australian Inquiry has been inaccurate or misleading, we also offer a corrective to such media accounts.

We conclude that child sexual abuse was a serious and widespread problem in the Catholic Church in Australia, However, the ‘crisis’ of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia is, in large part, an historical problem. For most of the claims of child sexual abuse referred to acts that allegedly occurred in the 1970s or earlier and the quantum of allegations of more recent acts of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is very low. Moreover, it can be plausibly argued that the decrease in allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church should be attributed to a growing awareness of how to protect against sexual abuse by priests and church workers, changes in the broader society (including a growing awareness of the impact of child sexual abuse) and the implementation of preventative strategies to protect children in the Church.

The Australian Inquiry first heard stories of child sexual abuse in what it called “private sessions.” 6,875 persons came forward and gave accounts of child sexual abuse in private sessions up until 31 May 2017. The allegations concerned a wide variety of Australian institutions, both religious and non-religious. Of these, 2,489 claimants alleged they were the victims of child sexual abuse in a Catholic institution. This number is 61.8% of all claimants who made allegations about a church entity in the private sessions (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 34). (We note, it would be expected that the Catholic Church would feature so prominently due to the large number of Catholic-run institutions historically, and hence at times prior to widespread reforms regarding child sexual abuse). In these sessions a person making a claim of child sexual abuse met with a Commissioner and told the Commissioner his or her story. Importantly, these claims were not substantiated. A decision was made by then Attorney General, Mark Dreyfus, that the Royal Commission Act 1902 (Cth) would be amended so that large numbers of people could tell their stories to the Australian Inquiry without cross-examination. This amendment to the Royal Commission Act 1902 (Cth) freed the Australian Inquiry from the task of investigating claims of child sexual abuse or cross-examining people who made such claims (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 1, 26). The following quote from the Australian Inquiry’s final report outlines the exact nature of the amendment that was made to the Royal Commission Act 1902 (Cth).

A problem with this decision occurred because the Australian Inquiry created quantitative data from the private sessions and reported the data without stressing that the data consisted of unsubstantiated and untested claims. Accordingly, the impression created was that these unsubstantiated claims were true claims, despite the risk of false claims existing in the data. The decision of Commissioners in the Australian Inquiry to use all of the allegations of child sexual abuse in the quantitative data is indicated below.

Note, the number 6,875 refers to all people who gave accounts of child sexual abuse in private sessions up until 31 May 2017 (Of these, 2,489 claimants alleged that they were abused in the Catholic Church). It must be acknowledged that the Australian Inquiry decided to call claimants of unsubstantiated child sexual abuse “survivors” avowedly as a sign of respect for victims of child sexual abuse. Some of the victims had previously not had their claims believed, or had been punished for making such claims, or had been treated with derision when making such claims. The Australian Inquiry did not want to re-traumatize complainants by doubting the veracity of their claims (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 1, 26). However, as stated previously, the implication of this use of the term “survivor” is that all of the claims are true claims.

It is reasonable to hear unsubstantiated stories of child sexual abuse in the initial phase of an inquiry as a filtering process, or as a process that leads on to targeted investigations that test claims. However, notwithstanding this, it is problematic that the Australian Inquiry did not adequately qualify the nature of the claims that were made in the private sessions. As mentioned, these claimants were called “survivors” which is misleading. The quantitative material that followed on from these claims is also misleading as it likely contains some false claims alongside legitimate claims. That some of these stories were highly likely to be false irrespective of the denotation “survivor” is illustrated by claims that Fiona Barnett made to the Australian Inquiry. Fiona Barnett claims she was sexually abused as a child by three former prime-ministers and that she witnessed hundreds of crimes including abductions, rape, torture, and murder1. She has no corroborating evidence for these claims and the police have declared the claims baseless. As mentioned in the previous chapter, the US focused John Jay Inquiry, by contrast, did not use, what it called, “implausible claims” in its data (Terry et al. 2004, 17).

The problems with unsubstantiated claims of child sexual abuse will be discussed below.

Before commencing the discussion on the Australian Inquiry itself we will briefly discuss the McMartin’s preschool trial to demonstrate that large scale investigations can contain multiple false claims. The McMartin’s preschool trial took place over six years in the late eighties. The McMartin family were subject to hundreds of allegations of child sexual abuse, in what was in 1990, the longest and most expensive criminal trial in the history of the USA. However, there were no convictions from this trial. A pertinent element of this trial is the high number of intentionally false claims that were made by the preschool witnesses. Some of the children who accused day-care workers and others of sexually abusing them later admitted to lying about this. In other cases, the allegations were proven to be untrue. For example, some children claimed they had been abused in tunnels underneath the day-care centre – the day-care centre was demolished and earthmoving equipment dug out the space where the building used to stand; there were no tunnels to be found. This case led to a number of books being written about what has now been deemed, the “day-care witch-hunt”. In a counter to the witch-hunt narrative that emerged, Ross Cheit (2014), himself a victim of child sexual abuse, wrote a book analysing the events that led to the McMartin trial. He agreed that many of the allegations were false; in fact, he accepted that approximately 350 allegations were false. However, he argued that 12 of the allegations against one person were potentially true, notwithstanding that the court had deemed them to be false. He also suggested that the premise of a witch-hunt concerning child sexual abuse may not be warranted given the high number of proven cases of child sexual abuse in current inquiries into child sexual abuse. That said, regardless of whether there was a witch-hunt, the US justice system deemed that most of the allegations in this instance, against multiple people, were false. This case, from nearly 30 years ago, should serve as a lesson to those who uncritically accept allegations of child sexual abuse, including those occupying positions on high profile commissions of inquiry.

The Australian Inquiry stated to the Australian newspaper, “But for a few witnesses, the evidence of individuals has not been challenged before the Australian Inquiry” (Guilliatt 2017). The inquiry stated, as mentioned above, that they did not cross-examine witnesses in the private sessions because there was a concern that victims of child sexual abuse would be re-traumatized by the process. That said, the Australian Inquiry’s decision not to substantiate the claims of the claimants is a cause of concern to many legal professionals – in particular, the former Attorney General and barrister-at-law Greg Smith who also served as prosecutor and counsel assisting the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption. He remarks:

Evidently, the Australian Inquiry has undervalued the need to safeguard against false claims, especially given the serious consequences of false claims and the historical record of reported instances of false claims of child sexual abuse. False claims are a real and serious problem. The seriousness of making false claims is reflected in the maximum penalty given to people who make such claims and are themselves prosecuted. For example, in NSW intentionally making a false accusation carries the maximum penalty of seven years imprisonment (Australian Government 2020). Note, the maximum sentence for false claims is greater than the maximum sentence for indecent assault which is five years imprisonment.

As stated above, there are serious consequences for people who make intentional false claims, such as imprisonment. There are also damaging consequences for people who make false claims that they believe to be true – such as is the case with some instances of so-called recovered repressed memories. For example, it can be devastating for a person to discover that their claims of recovered repressed memories are false in the tough cross-examination of a court case.

That said, the consequences of false claims are more serious for the people who are the target of the false claims. Some examples of false claims of child sexual abuse against priests include the following from Ireland, Spain, Australia and the USA. In 2007, Paul Anderson was imprisoned for three years for falsely claiming that he was raped by a priest in 1981. Anderson admitted to the High Court of Ireland that his claims of child sexual abuse by Fr Tim Hazelwood were false (McGarry 2018). In this case not only did Anderson lie about the abuse, his mother and father both admitted to lying in order to strengthen Anderson’s case. Anderson made the allegation, and his parents supported the allegation, in order that Anderson fraudulently receive a compensation payment. Note, this case is one of the allegations that is included in the Cloyne Inquiry under the pseudonym Fr Ricardus. In 2017 a Spanish court declared that David Ramirez Castillo’s accusations of child sexual abuse levelled at Fr Roman Martinez were false and implausible (Minder 2017). In Chicago (2017) “John J. Doe” was taped on a gaol phone planning how he was going to “play [the] role” of a victim of child sexual abuse in order to defraud the Diocese of Chicago – albeit the target of John Doe’s allegations is a proven child sex offender (Michael O’Loughlin 2017). Furthermore, some cases of child sexual abuse and the handling of cases of child sexual abuse are ambiguous. For example, in Australia Archbishop Philip Wilson was initially given a custodial sentence for covering-up crimes of child sexual abuse by a magistrate judge. However, the appeals judge overturned this verdict and remarked that he could not even determine if the crime took place (McCarthy 2018).

Recently, as we discuss in section 3.2.16 Cardinal George Pell’s conviction for child sexual abuse in the lower courts was overturned by the High Court of Australia. Pell was found by the High Court to be not guilty of child sexual abuse calling into question the competence of juries and judges in the lower courts to make evidence-based adjudications in relation to child sexual abuse allegations made against members of the Catholic Church. There are many more examples.

Evidently, the Australian Inquiry failed to provide adequate safeguards against the possibility of false claims. This is especially problematic considering the Australian Judiciary have made reforms regarding judicial evidence in historical cases of child sexual abuse in light of the recommendations of the Australian Inquiry. Take for instance the following recommendation from the Australian Inquiry regarding the evidence of a single witness with an uncorroborated claim of an historical act of child sexual abuse.

This is particularly salient when we consider that Cardinal George Pell was convicted of child sexual abuse, on the basis of the uncorroborated and false evidence of a single victim. This decision was made by a jury despite the existence of exculpatory evidence. For example, one of the boys who was alleged to have been abused on two separate occasions denied he had been abused before his death (Brennan 2019). Pell’s reason for appealing the guilty verdict was as follows:

A related issue is that of mistaken identity. As mentioned in the commentary on the Murphy Inquiry there were cases of mistaken identity in the representative sample group, including Fr Giraldus (confirmed case of mistaken identity) and Fr Ignatio (probable case of mistaken identity).

In general, false claims are characterised into two different categories: claims that are known to be false and intended to deceive and claims that are false but believed to be true by the person making the claim. Vexatious claims are typically false. They are intended to deceive and are made with the intention of damaging the person or institution that is the target of the allegation. Vexatious claims are sufficiently common in Australia to have led the government to enact legislation to enable courts to proceed against vexatious claims. The name of the act is the Vexatious Proceedings Act 2008 (Supreme Court of NSW n.d.).

Also, in the category of claims that are intended to deceive are fraudulent claims made in order to gain monetary compensation. These types of claims are also common. It is not unreasonable to expect that some of the claims made to the Australian Inquiry about the Catholic Church are of this type. According to the data provided by the Catholic Church and relied on by the Australian Inquiry, 77% of the complaints of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church were made after the creation of a redress schemes (in the late nineties). This is despite the fact that the number of alleged acts of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that are claimed to have taken place since the late nineties has been very low and those claimed to have taken place since the mid-eighties are on a sharp downward trajectory (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 303). This very high figure of 77% of child sexual abuse claims made post the introduction of the redress schemes and made in the context of evidently low and declining actual incidents of child sexual abuse suggests that some of the claims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church may have been fraudulently made for the purpose of monetary gain.

The second category of claims are claims that are false but are believed to be true by the person making the claims. Two such examples in this category, that we discuss, are claims that are the result of misunderstandings and false ‘recovered repressed memories.’ It must also be added that false claims can result from some mental health disorders. The risk of misunderstandings is exacerbated by the very broad definition of child sexual abuse that the Australian Inquiry uses. In some cases, one and the same act can be an act of child sexual abuse or an innocent act depending on the intention of the person performing the act. For example, if an adult puts a child on his knee for the purpose of sexual gratification, this is child sexual abuse. If an adult puts a child on his knee but not for the purposes of sexual gratification – then this is not an act of child sexual abuse. Clearly, there is room for misunderstandings in these kinds of cases.

The Australian Inquiry noted the risk of misunderstandings, particularly concerning grooming acts, which are considered acts of child sexual abuse. Grooming can take place in person and online, and is often difficult to identify and define. This is because the behaviours involved are not necessarily explicitly sexual, directly abusive or criminal in themselves, and may only be recognised in hindsight. Indeed, some grooming behaviours are consistent with behaviours or activities in non-abusive relationships, and can even include overtly desirable social behaviours, distinguished only by the motivation of the perpetrator.

As stated above, in cases like these it is possible that there are some misunderstandings. As far as recovered repressed memories are concerned it is important to begin our discussion with knowledge of the workings of memory. Consider the following key points concerning memory and the law from The British Psychological Board: (1) Memories are records of people’s experiences of events and are not records of the events themselves; (2) Remembering is a constructive process – memory is prone to error and can be influenced by the recall environment; (3) Recall of a single or several highly specific details does not guarantee that a memory is accurate or even that the event remembered actually occurred – the only way to establish the truth of a memory is with independent corroborating evidence; (4) People can sincerely ‘remember’ events that they have not, in reality, experienced (The British Psychological Society, 2010). Here a good deal depends on what precisely counts as corroborating evidence. However, if a commission of inquiry with a remit and obligation to discover the truth adopts the practice of accepting as true the untested memory claims of alleged decades-old instances of child sexual abuse and relies on these untested memory claims in its findings and recommendations then there is a significant problem. The reliability of these findings and, therefore, the acceptability of these recommendations must surely now be called into question.

False ‘recovered repressed memories’ are of particular importance to this research given the controversy surrounding these types of claims and the Australian Inquiry’s reliance on recovered repressed memories. Recovered repressed memories concern presumed memories that were recollected, at a later date, usually through the prompting of family or leading techniques in therapy, including altered states of consciousness. These recollections are sometimes generated through exposure to books, movies, or the media (Loftus and Ketcham 1994). In the eighties and nineties, many claims were made of recovered memories of ritualistic or satanic abuse. The veracity of these claims has been the subject of much discussion, and legal experts warn these claims need to be assessed with caution.

Indeed, claims of recovered repressed memories have been treated with caution in Australia and abroad for over twenty years (Guilliatt 2017). The following local authorities have warned that memories that are obtained through counselling can be unreliable or false: The Wood Royal Commission into the NSW Police Service (1994,83), and the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (1996), among others. Legally in NSW it is incumbent upon the complainant whose evidence relies on recovered repressed memories induced in hypnosis to establish that the evidence is reliable and to prove a prima facie reason for its admission as evidence (Hunt 1993). In the NSW case, R v Tillott443 (1995) a similar approach was taken in relation to Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, following assessment by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal that, as a technique it presented similar risks of suggestibility, confabulation, pseudo memory, increased witness confidence, and possible falsity of the recovered memory, as associated with memories allegedly recovered under hypnosis.

International bodies that warn against a reliance of recovered repressed memories include, the American Psychiatric Association (1994), and the American Medical Association’s Council for Scientific Affairs (1994), among others. In 1994 the American Psychiatric Association published a statement on recovered memories of sexual abuse in which it made the following points that are generally agreed upon:

Despite these legal guidelines the Australian Inquiry decided not to investigate claims of recovered repressed memories. This uncritical acceptance of the veracity of recovered repressed memories has opened the Australian Inquiry to much criticism, as has the Australian Inquiry’s involvement with Cathy Kezelman and the Blue Knot Foundation. Kezelman is the president of the Blue Knot Foundation.

Kezelman wrote a book detailing her personal experience of recovered memories of child sexual abuse that she claims she began recalling in her forties. The nature of this alleged abuse was extreme. One of Kezelman’s more disturbing claims is that she was ritualistically abused by men in hoods and that on one occasion the men in hoods took her to a cave where she witnessed a girl being dismembered on a stone altar (Kezelman 2010, 246-68). There is no corroborating evidence to support these claims. In the afterword of the book, in a brief comment, Kezelman (2010) states that the actual events may not be identical to her memories and that her memories may be a “metaphor” for what happened to her (282-3). At no point does Kezelman entertain the thought that these are potentially false memories. Instead, she has written a book alleging that actual people, who are named, tortured and murdered children without being sure if this is actually the case. Indeed, Kezelman’s brother, Claude Imhoff, denies these claims and says, “It’s not that I don’t remember those things, I can categorically state that those events never happened” (Guilliatt 2017). Imhoff goes on to say that he is concerned that Kezelman had not mentioned anything about the dangers of false memories being created in counselling sessions. His motive for speaking out is to prevent a wave of false accusations and false persecutions arising from false recovered repressed memories.

The Blue Knot Foundation, with Kezelman as the president, is one of the organisations that received funding to counsel claimants who gave evidence at the Australian Inquiry. Kezelman also helped to write the national guidelines for counselling victims of sexual abuse and was appointed to a panel that advised the Turnbull government on the introduction of the redress scheme for victims of child sexual abuse in institutions. Ian Coyle, a forensic psychologist who assesses abuse claims for the courts has criticised the Australian Inquiry for endorsing the Blue Knot Foundation. Coyle notes that the Blue Knot Foundation was, in large part, staffed by people with no forensic or clinical experience in psychology or psychiatry. Indeed, several leading figures in psychology, including Richard Bryant who is the director of Traumatic Stress Clinic in Sydney, have argued that the Australian Inquiry endorsed dubious counselling practices that could potentially harm the very people it was intended to help (Guilliatt 2017).

After the Australian Inquiry heard from claimants in the private sessions it narrowed its focus to particular institutions. The Catholic Church was one such institution. 2,489 claimants in the private sessions (61.8% of all claimants who made allegations about a church entity in these sessions (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 34)) claimed they had been abused by a priest or church-worker in the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic Church was an institution of interest to the Australian Inquiry. In order to discover the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the Australian Inquiry commissioned data analysts Sphere Company to create a data survey that was given to Catholic Church authorities to complete. When this information was completed, by church authorities, and returned to the Australian Inquiry it was given to Sphere Company who cleaned and analysed the data (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 113).

It is from this data analysis that the statistics that were published widely in the media arose. It is now generally reported in the media that 7% of all Catholic priests in Australia have been the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse. This figure has been widely reported in Australia and abroad. The Daily Mail ran the headline, “Shocking Church data finds SEVEN per cent of all Catholic priests are accused paedophiles – and in some orders that number jumps to more than one in five” (Johnson 2017). La Repubblica (2017), the popular Italian newspaper ran the headline, “Australia, paradiso degli orchi. Dal 1950 il 7% dei preti accusati di pedofilia”. This translates to read, “Australia, a paradise of orcs. Since 1950 7% of priests are accused paedophiles.” Orcs are characters in J.R.R Tolkien’s works who are brutish, aggressive, malevolent and repulsive.

Evidently, the reporting of this figure has damaged the reputation of the Catholic Church in Australia nationally and internationally, and thereby undermined its moral and spiritual authority. (Here we note that the Catholic Church may well have been, in the past, overly concerned with its reputation, including at the expense of protecting children from abuse. However, it is unreasonable, indeed unacceptable, to expect the Catholic Church to divest itself of all concern for its reputation in response to this false or misleading criticism). We might also conclude, from the headline in La Repubblica, that the reputation of Australians in general have been tarnished. Yet, this figure of 7% warrants scrutiny. It is the highest figure among international inquiries that addressed the same question. For example, the figure in the John Jay Report of the total number of priests with allegations of child sexual abuse from 1950-2002 in the USA was 4% (Terry et al. 2011, 8). The Netherlands Report puts the number at 1.7% (Kaufman and Erooga 2016, 49). and Silvano Tomasi (2009), the Holy See’s representative to the United Nations, claims the figure is between 1%- 5%.

Before we discuss the problems with the weighted methodology used by the Australian Inquiry it is important to reiterate that an allegation is not necessarily the report of a fact; allegations can be false. Moreover, the figure of 7% refers to priests over a 60-year period. This last point is important because safeguarding mechanisms that were put in place in the Catholic Church in the mid-1990s have proven to be effective given that the number of current serving priests who have contemporary allegations of child sexual abuse is very low (the exact figures are given in section 3.2.6.). The impression from most media reports is that 7% of currently serving priests are predators. Accordingly, many media reports are grossly misleading. Moreover, the claim that these priests who engaged in child sexual abuse were all paedophiles is false. As we saw in the discussion of the John Jay Inquiry (section 2.3.) a paedophile is someone who compulsively engages in sexual actions with pre-pubescent children and not, for instance, 17-year-old boys opportunistically. In fact, according to the John Jay Report only a tiny fraction of acts of child sexual abuse, perpetrated by priests, were the actions of paedophiles – 2 % of the accused priests were paedophiles. (Terry et al. 2011, 54).

To re-iterate, it is not true, as the media often reports, that 7% of currently serving priests in the Catholic Church have had allegations of child sexual abuse levelled against them2. It is also not true that 7% of priests over a sixty-year period have had allegations of child sexual abuse levelled against them. To begin with, the 7% figure is not an actual numerical fact but is instead the product of a weighted methodology that has included most Catholic priests over a sixty year period (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 296). Furthermore, the 7% figure is not an actual numerical fact because it does not include priests who were in ministry for less than two years, it duplicates some priests, and attributes weighted values to others (i.e. a priest who has been in ministry for many years may be weighted as two priests) (RCIRCSA 2017a, 246). The figure is likely inflated as evidence suggests that many offenders in the Church do not offend in the early years of their ministry (Terry et al. 2011, 3). For example, in the John Jay Inquiry the average age of a priest at the time of the first alleged incident of child sexual abuse is 39 years of age. Moreover, the average age has consistently increased over time. In the 1950’s the average age was 38 in the 1990s the age was 47 (Terry et al.2004, 44). Note, priests who ministered for less than two years have been removed from the Australian Inquiry’s analysis.

Moreover, as mentioned above, the figure of 7% is likely to be inflated as a consequence of instances in which one and the same perpetrator was counted more than once. This likely duplication of alleged offenders arose because of the Commission’s practice in cases in which the identity of the alleged offender was unclear; if the identity was unclear, it was assumed the person was not one of the already identified offenders. The following quote from the findings of the Australian Inquiry explains this decision, “A conservative approach was used to group these records. It was considered more reasonable to have duplicates of the same alleged perpetrator than to incorrectly merge records pertaining to different individuals” (RCIRCSA 2017a, 227). It is worth noting here that many of the allegations were lacking in precise detail. For example, there are allegations that do not include the gender of the alleged offender because the complainants could not determine the gender of the person who allegedly abused them. There are many allegations without precise dates and names etc. As far as the data from the Catholic Church is concerned there were 1,880 alleged perpetrators. In 530 cases the identity of the alleged offender was unknown. If these cases are duplicated that would help to explain why the alleged perpetrator number is so high. When the weighted methodology was not used the figure was 5.6% (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 296). However, this number still does not include priests who were in ministry for less than two years and includes duplicate numbers of priests. (RCIRCSA 2017a, 15).

Furthermore, the 7% figure or the 5.6% figure includes all claims of child sexual abuse against Catholic priests, including claims that have not been investigated. 

This decision has been outlined in the following quote,

This quote may surprise or even shock some people. For instance, it may be seen as unfair that the Australian Inquiry was interested in allegations that the Catholic Church did not accept (rightly or wrongly). However, given it was the prime interest of the Australian Inquiry to investigate complaints handling it was important to request all complaints. That said, there are statistical problems when this approach is taken – i.e. the above-mentioned inflated numbers of priests who are presented as having credible allegations of child sexual abuse.

There are additional problems in using the data provided by the Catholic Church to determine the number of true claims of child sexual abuse. Notably, the Catholic Church has a low standard of proof for making compensation payments (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 321). For example, there was no outline of a standard of proof in the 1996 version of the Catholic Church’s national redress scheme, Towards Healing. Bishop Robinson told the Australian Inquiry that the standard applied by the assessors was that of “moral certainty”, which was “less than that of beyond reasonable doubt” (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 314). Peter Gray SC, a lawyer representing the Catholic Church, told the Commission in 2015 that church groups did not intend to question claimants about details of their allegations or their recollections; even if somebody from a church group had a different recollection (Guilliatt 2017). Thereby, it is likely that a number of claims for redress were paid to people making false claims. For instance, the Melbourne Response, a redress scheme that was established in Melbourne in 1996 by Cardinal George Pell did provide redress to 84% of claims, which is a strikingly high number (RCIRCSA 2017a, 33). It is also worth noting that the Melbourne Response’s decision to make a payment or offer of compensation was not an admission of legal liability (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 321).

More importantly, the 7% figure does not reflect the current situation in the Catholic Church in Australia. During the period 2000-2010 less than ten Catholic priests in total were the subject of a first allegation of child sexual abuse3. (A first allegation concerns an alleged offence that began in the designated decade and does not include cases of ongoing abuse that began in the previous decade and continued into the designated period. Of all the reported contemporary cases only 5%4 of allegations concern cases that lasted for a decade or more, most allegations (60%) occurred in a single year5. Notwithstanding this, if we were to include the allegations of priests from the previous decade, that is the 90’s, there would only be an additional 20 priests (approximately) to include in the figure) (RCIRCSA 2017a, 22-23). For the period commencing in 2010 this number has dropped to less than five. During the period 2000-2010 0.1% of Catholic priests were the subject of a first allegation of child sexual abuse. Generally, from 1990 through to today there are very low numbers of first reported cases of child sexual abuse. Among those who are reported, the majority of the alleged offenders are lay people and not priests (RCIRCSA 2017a, 22).

Further, there are other difficulties with the data survey used by the Australian Inquiry (and created by Sphere Company). Notably, the data survey does not inquire into the seriousness of events. Moreover, the Australian Inquiry defines a child as under the age of 18 but does not take into account that the age of consent is lower. This is problematic in Australia given that the age of consent is 16 or 17 depending on the particular state law. Both of these points will be discussed in further detail below.

As mentioned previously, there is no way to differentiate the claims of child sexual abuse that were provided to the Australian Inquiry with respect to their degree of seriousness, e.g. between child sexual abuse involving penile penetration and touching a child over their clothing. The Australian Inquiry has a very broad definition of child sexual abuse, yet the survey instrument used by the Australian Inquiry does not inquire about the nature of the alleged acts of child sexual abuse. For example, “No details were sought about the precise nature of the alleged acts of child sexual abuse that were the subject of a claim” (RCIRCSA 2017a, 4). Claims of serious child sexual abuse are given equal weight as claims of child sexual abuse that are less serious. In short, the Australian Inquiry’s statistical findings with respect to the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is a finding with respect to child sexual abuse very broadly defined and, in particular, a finding that includes allegations of less serious forms of child sexual abuse. As discussed comprehensively in our analysis of the Irish and John Jay inquiries, acts of child sexual abuse that are included in the broad definitions used by these inquiries vary tremendously. For example, at one end of the spectrum of complaints there is an allegation of violent gang rape and at the other end of the spectrum there is an allegation which concerns a nun looking in a suspicious manner at a child bathing.

In contrast to the Australian Inquiry, both the Irish Inquiry and the John Jay Inquiry categorised the allegations of child sexual abuse according to the seriousness of the allegations. The John Jay Inquiry separated the allegations of child sexual abuse into 20 different categories. It is worth noting that in this review there were few priests who were at the least serious end of the scale. For example, only 2.9% of the priests were accused of verbal abuse or using child pornography exclusively – i.e. without committing these offences in combination with other offences. Only 9% of the priests committed offenses involving touching over the clothes only i.e. they did not commit a more severe offense than this. 15.8% of priests committed the more serious act of touching under the clothing and this was their most serious offence, i.e. they did not perform any penetrative sexual acts, including kissing and genital sex etc. We might conclude that the allegations in the Australian Inquiry were similar. However, without this detail it is difficult to get an overall picture of the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in Australia. This is not an unreasonable expectation from the Australian Inquiry given it had a budget of half a billion dollars (AUD). The John Jay Inquiry, by contrast, managed to collate these figures with a budget of a few million dollars (USD).

Furthermore, the Irish Inquiry and the John Jay Inquiry make a distinction between a person who has been the subject of a single allegation (29% of allegations in the John Jay Inquiry (Terry et al. 2004, 74)) of abuse and those who are known to be repeat offenders. This is significant as there is a high rate of recidivism with paedophile offenders. In the John Jay Inquiry only 2 % of the alleged offenders were claimed to be paedophiles and, as such, at the very serious end of the spectrum and responsible for many of the claims of child sexual abuse (Terry et al. 2011, 54).

In closing this section, we note the complex nature of the impact of child sexual abuse. For instance, there was once a prevailing thought that the overall harm caused by child sexual abuse was directly equivalent to the severity of a single act or the repeated nature of less severe acts. However, there is now research to suggest that some less severe forms of child sexual abuse can ultimately have a detrimental impact on victims of child sexual abuse. This is particularly evident if the person in question was already abused in his or her home environment. However, collapsing the distinctions between all forms of child sexual abuse is not helpful here for a variety of reasons and is not fair to a person who has been accused of child sexual abuse. For instance, did the accused make a suggestive remark in the presence of a sexually mature late teen or did the accused rape a five-year-old child?

The Australian Inquiry defines a child as someone who is less than 18 years old, but does not take into consideration the age of consent (RCIRCSA 2017a, 215)6. Accordingly, if a person who is 18 or older engages in a sexual act with someone who is under 18 years of age then – according to the Australian Inquiry – the former has perpetrated an act of child sexual abuse (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 1, 320, 325). In effect, the Australian Inquiry has decided to deem 18 to be the age of consent, at least for its purposes. Yet, 18 is not the age of consent in Australia. The age of consent in Australia has varied over time and across jurisdictions. Currently it is 16 or 17 years of age depending on the state. At any rate, here we simply note that the Australian Inquiry’s definition of child sexual abuse, concerning children above the age of consent, conflicts with that adhered to by Australian legislators and presumably, therefore, with the general view of the Australian citizenry who elected those legislators. Evidently, unlike the Australian Inquiry, the Australian citizenry does not, by and large, believe that a 17-year-old who has had a sexual encounter with an older person has necessarily been the victim of child sexual abuse; indeed, in some states many citizens presumably hold that even a 16-year-old who has had a sexual encounter with an older person has not necessarily been the victim of child sexual abuse.

Notwithstanding the above, Australian legislators and citizens do believe that children in special care need to be afforded special protections including in pastoral care provided by priests. Therefore, it is currently an offence in some states to engage sexually with 16 or 17-year-olds in special care, including in pastoral care provided by priests. However, this law only came into force in NSW in a nascent form (“Carnal knowledge by teacher”) in 2002. Of course, it is not morally acceptable for a priest who has taken a vow of celibacy to engage sexually with a 16- or 17-year-old, even if the youth can consent to the activity. However, in terms of historical allegations (before the introduction of the Act just mentioned) where a potential power imbalance was not taken into consideration, should this be considered an act of child sexual abuse? Furthermore, it may be the case that the priest did not meet the 16 or 17 year old whilst undertaking his work. Indeed, the 17 year old may be an atheist, calling into question issues of power imbalance. What if the youth in question is a ‘fresh-faced’ adult? For example, IICSA implicitly endorses the safeguarding actions of Ampleforth School who ultimately referred RC-F95 to the police because of his preference for pornographic websites that depict ‘fresh faced’ 18-24-year-old men.

Unfortunately, the Australian Inquiry does not give us a comprehensive break-down of the ages of the alleged victims of child sexual abuse. We are given an average age – 11.4 (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 310) years of age for all claimants, and a percentage number of alleged victims who were under 13 and who were 13 years or older (60% were under 13, 40% were 13 years or older) (RCIRCSA 2017a, 25). Therefore, we do not know how many of the 40% of alleged victims who were aged from 13 to 18 years were, in fact, legal acts at the time of the alleged offences. Accordingly, we do not have a clear sense of the percentage of alleged acts of child sexual abuse in the above-described grey area, e.g. the percentage involving 16- or 17-year-old youths. This is important given that many Australian legislators and citizens evidently do not regard these cases as instances of child sexual abuse (even if they might on other grounds, nevertheless, regard them as instances of the more general category of sexual exploitation). For it may well be that the percentage of 16- or 17-year-old youths in question is high. If so, then by the lights of Australian legislators’ and (presumably) citizens’ understanding of what counts as the age that a child can legally consent to sex, the Australian Inquiry’s calculation of the number of alleged child sexual abuse victims will be an inflated number. Here it is important to note the cumulative effect of raising the overall number of acts of child sexual abuse. E.g. some cases must be in the legal category, child-on-child abuse added to the Catholic Church’s overall numbers of allegations, false claims, allegations that have been doubled-up etc.

A further issue with the age of consent involves male homosexuality. Most of the alleged offences that were reported to the Australian Inquiry were male-on-male. In as far as gender was reported in the data provided by the Catholic Church 90% of alleged offenders were male and 78% of the victims were male (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 34). This is significant if we consider changes in the laws relating to homosexuality in Australia. It was as late as 1997 that homosexuality was decriminalised in all states of Australia. Therefore, it is possible that in some cases bishops were protecting homosexual priests who had sexual relations with consenting males over the age of sixteen and who would otherwise have been subject to criminal charges for homosexual behaviour.

According to research funded by the Australian Inquiry, there has been a decline in child sexual abuse over the past 15-20 years in Australia, including in the Catholic Church (Kaufman and Erooga 2016, 51). Most important is the current situation in the Catholic Church in Australia, stated above, i.e. during the period 2000-2010 0.1% of Catholic priests were the subject of a first allegation. Generally, from 1990 to today there are very low numbers of first reported cases of child sexual abuse. Among those who are reported, the majority of the offenders are lay people, not priests (RCIRCSA 2017a, 22). Of the claims in the private sessions that relate to religious institutions 90% of the claims concern allegations of child sexual abuse that are alleged to have occurred before 1990, and 5.8% of the claims concern allegations that are alleged to have occurred post 1990. 4.2% of the claims do not include a date (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 17). As far as the Catholic Church data is concerned 86% of the claims relate to alleged child sexual abuse that commenced in the period from 1950 to 1989 inclusive. Moreover, 29% of first allegations of sexual abuse concern alleged abuse that began in the 70s. (Note, according to the dates that were reported, over 53% of the allegations of abuse occurred over a single year. In 13% of claims the abuse occurred over a period of 5 years) (RCIRCSA 2017a, 13).

In Chapter Two we discussed claims in the US context that suggest child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the United States peaked in the 1960s and 1970s, at least in part because of the social and cultural context of the time (Terry et al. 2011, 2). We also discussed reasons why child sexual abuse decreased in the USA, including an increased awareness of the harm of child sexual abuse and the introduction of government laws (Terry et al. 2011, 3). The decline in the number of allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia can similarly be attributed to a growing awareness of the damage of child sexual abuse, improved vetting and reporting processes in the Church, improved child safety processes in the Church, better training for priests, the creation of government laws, and a greater awareness of the psychology of offenders (RCIRCSA 2017a, 9). Today there is evidence of an acceptable approach to claims of child sexual abuse. Consider the following quote from the Sydney Archdiocese.

The following timeline indicates important dates and periods in relation to alleged incidents of child sexual abuse and the responses of the Catholic Church in Australia in respect of the introduction of child safety measures.

1988

– The Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference (ACBC) formally discussed the issue of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

– Church leaders began to coordinate their responses to victims of child sexual abuse and to perpetrators of child sexual abuse.

– The Special Issues Committee was created to address the problem of child sexual abuse.

1989

– The ACBC drafted a series of protocols that recommended a nationally consistent approach to child sexual abuse (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 299)

1992

– Brian Lucas visited the United States and Canada and reported back to the ACBC Special Issues Committee advising that offending priests should not be returned to active ministry.

1993

– Fr Usher informed the Special Issues Sub-Committee of overseas developments concerning the possibility of paedophiles returning to work (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 377)

He claimed that any prognosis for ‘a cure’ for people who admit to acts of sexual misconduct in relation to children and young people is remote. Overseas and local clinical experience indicated that the possibility of any offender returning to fill active ministry is unlikely. Arrangements whereby such offenders returned to some form of “special ministry” in the Church under supervision was a possibility and there were models of such arrangements in the process of development in Canada and the United States of America (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 378).

The mid- 1990s

– A general understanding emerged amongst church leaders that alleged perpetrators of child sexual abuse could not be kept in ministry where they had contact with children.

– Preventative strategies were put in place (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 316).

– Priests were put on administrative leave while a complaint was being assessed (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 315).

– Priests were sent for psychological assessment and therapy after receiving a complaint (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 372). Here the psychologist was/is a mandatory reporter.

1996

– The Melbourne Response, a local redress scheme, was created and implemented to address the needs of victims of child sexual abuse.

1997

– Towards Healing, the nationwide response (except Melbourne) to victims of child sexual abuse was established (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 300).

The following is a quote from the findings of the Australian Inquiry that outlines the processes of Towards Healing.

– The Church sent offending priests to Encompass – a residential treatment program for sex offenders (1997-2008) (RCIRCSA 2017a, 10).

1999

– Since 1997 the Catholic Church in Australia worked to improve the processes in Towards Healing.

– The National Committee for Professional Standards engaged Professor Patrick Parkinson AM to conduct an independent review of Towards Healing. Parkinson’s recommendations were discussed and Towards Healing was implemented.

2001

– The new version of Towards Healing came into effect (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 447).

2018

– The ACBC and Catholic Religious Australia (CRA) released their response to the Australian Inquiry (2018). The ACBC claimed that they accepted 98% of the Australian Inquiry’s recommendations and noted that many of the recommendations had already been implemented or were in the process of being implemented. The Truth Justice Healing Council (the official body in the Catholic Church that liaised with the Australian Inquiry) released a four-volume response to the Australian Inquiry. Vol. 1. Where from and where to: The Truth Justice Healing Council, the Royal Commission and the Catholic Church in Australia. Vol. 2. The Royal Commission’s recommendations, and responses from the Truth, Justice, Healing Council. Vol. 3. What we have done: an activity report from the Truth Justice Healing Council 2013-2018. Vol. 4 Emerging Themes: A snapshot of approaches taken by Church authorities in Australia to formation, governance, legal and policy issues (2016).

2020

– The ACBC and CRA release the Light from the Southern Cross. Promoting Co-Responsible Governance in the Catholic Church in Australia. This document responds to recommendations made by the Royal Commission concerning governance.

2022

– The ACBC announce that the new nation-wide approach to handling abuse allegations is, National Response Protocol. Church Authorities in Australia responding to concerns and allegations of abuse against children and vulnerable adults.

For the recent annual reports from the Catholic Church concerning safeguarding activities from 2018-2022 please see the following government website: Search | National Office for Child Safety.

In the following commentary we discuss some controversial areas of concern.

The Catholic Church in Australia has been criticised for not reporting crimes of child sexual abuse to the police. The prevailing view in the Church was that victims of child sexual abuse should decide whether to report instances of abuse to the police. This view was also evident in Australia and is expressed in the following quote from Fr Lucas in his evidence to the Australian Inquiry. “The question of informing the police was taken for granted as a matter for the victim, except in circumstances where the mandatory reporting provisions applied” (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 356). This approach is not too different from the approach taken by the Australian Inquiry itself which is outlined in the following quote, “If we received information relating to a potential contravention of Australian law, we made referrals to police in cases where the alleged perpetrator could have been alive, and the survivor wished us to report the matter. There were many cases where the alleged perpetrator was either known to be, or was almost certainly, deceased. If there was a prospective risk to any child a referral was made irrespective of the wish of the survivor” (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 1, 25).

Both of these approaches, as outlined above, accord with the law. It is helpful here to cite, as the Australian Inquiry does, the relevant part of the Act that currently concerns mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse, notably section 316 (1) of the Crimes Act 1900 (NSW).

In 1998 the law was amended. From this date clerics can be prosecuted without the approval of the Attorney-General if they conceal a serious indictable offence. However, it must also be noted that this act is controversial (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 357). At present the Law Reform Commission are calling for section 1 of this act to be abolished because it can have consequences that might be regarded as unfair. For example, if a victim of historical child sexual abuse discloses the crime to family members and the family members do not report the crime to the police, then the family members have committed this offence (Law Reform Commission n.d.). Other states have similar laws including the Victorian Crimes Act 1958 – section 327. This section states:

However, a person is excused from reporting the offence on a number of grounds including if the victim does not want the incident to be disclosed. This is in keeping with the decision expressed above by Fr Lucas and the Australian Inquiry. The current document (2022) in the Catholic Church in Australia for handling complaints of abuse is the National Response Protocol. This document concerns a nationwide approach, as opposed to the previous approach which was somewhat state based – The Melbourne Response for Melbourne and Towards Healing for the rest of the country. The procedures for reporting to the police in the National Response Protocol are very clear:

The findings of the Australian Inquiry show there was a peak in incidents of child sexual abuse in the 1960s and the 1970s followed by a sharp decline in the mid-1980s. While these figures are based on allegations, they are consistent with the figures arrived at by overseas inquiries. Yet, a problem with the current numbers arises because, on average, allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia have occurred 33 years after the alleged incident of abuse (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 302). Of the allegations in the private sessions that relate to religious institutions 90% concern incidents of child sexual abuse that allegedly occurred before 1990, and 5.8% of the allegations concern incidents that allegedly occurred post 1990. 4.2% of the allegations do not include the date of the alleged incident (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 17). Consider this quote from the chair of the Australian Inquiry, Justice McClellan (2017b), “And, as you know, once out in the public domain, many more people have come forward. I mean, thousands have come to this Commission, many of whom had never been to anyone else before.”

This led the Australian Inquiry to claim that the current situation in the Catholic Church, regarding child sexual abuse, is likely to reflect the high numbers in the 1970s, despite very low reported allegations of contemporary incidents of child sexual abuse. The Australian Inquiry claims that it is likely that there are a large number of unreported incidents of currently occurring child sexual abuse that will be reported 30 years from now – given the average delay in reporting of past incidents. However, this claim is questionable. We note that if the delay is typically 30 years, then the number of complaints in relation to incidents alleged to have taken place circa 1990 would be very high at this time i.e. circa 2020; but they are not high, they are actually very low.

Many reasons are given for the delay in reporting alleged offences. The reasons offered for the 30-year delay include the following ones. Some victims of child sexual abuse did not have enough confidence to report offences at the time of the offence; But does that confidence spontaneously emerge after 30 years or has the climate changed? e.g. as a result of the Australian Inquiry, in which case we would expect the delay regarding further complaints to be greatly reduced. In the case of recovered repressed memories, the claimants did not know that they had been abused; But why would a person recover these memories after 30 years rather than, say, 20 years? Still others came forward because of the opportunity afforded by the Australian Inquiry. If so, we would expect many more allegations of recent incidents of child sexual abuse than the Commission’s explanation of the 30-year delay can admit.

As the Australian Inquiry suggests, it is possible that the figures of current incidents of child sexual abuse – as well as, of course, the allegations of child sexual abuse on which these figures are based – are underestimated. However, it is highly unlikely that the number of actual acts of child sexual abuse in the 2000s and since, is anywhere near as high as the corresponding number for the 1960s and 1970s. For one thing, as things stand and as just stated, the number of incidents of child sexual abuse that allegedly took place since the 2000s is much lower proportionally than the corresponding number for the 1960s and 1970s. Accordingly, there is a presumption in favour of the proposition that the actual rates of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church sharply declined over this period. The Australian Inquiry has not shown otherwise but has merely offered a contestable speculation which is in any case, as we saw above, not credible. For another thing, in relation to the early 1960s to late 1980s period, there was a noticeable drop in the offences alleged to have taken place in the 1980s – some 30 years ago. Furthermore, 86% of the claims of child sexual abuse pertained to acts that allegedly commenced or occurred in 1950-1989 inclusive. The highest number of first-alleged incidents of child sexual abuse by a priest occurred in the 1970s (of the Catholic Church data (29% of claims with known dates) (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 34). Moreover, given that 77% of all claims of child sexual abuse were made after the creation of a redress scheme, it would seem that the redress scheme has encouraged people to make claims.

As we mention in section 3.8, research that has been funded by the Australian Inquiry claims that there has been a decline in child sexual abuse over the past 15-20 years, including in the Church in Australia (Kaufman and Erooga 2016, 51). Furthermore, the delay in reporting, sometimes a delay of decades, is significant. In the data from the Catholic Church 81% of allegations were made at least 20 years after the alleged event occurred (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 79). It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the Church to take action against an offender in the immediate aftermath of the offence if the offence has not yet been reported and will not be reported for some decades. Moreover, for evidentiary reasons among others, it is even difficult for the Church to take action against such offenders decades after their offences, given these offences were not reported at the time of their offences but only decades later.

One of the lesser-known findings of the Australian Inquiry is that not all of the offenders in the Catholic Church are priests. In the private sessions pertaining to the Catholic Church and Catholic run institutions 53.1% of the claimants alleged that a lay person sexually abused them. These lay persons included teachers, residential care workers, housemasters, volunteers, ancillary staff and foster carers serving in Catholic churches or Catholic institutions (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 334). In the Catholic Church data, the numbers of alleged offenders are as follows: 37% were non-ordained religious brothers or sisters, 30% were priests and 29% were lay people (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 35). Of the alleged perpetrators 543 were lay people (or 29 per cent) with a further 72 (or 4%) whose religious status was unknown (RCIRCSA 2017a, 15). These figures are not only significant for the misunderstanding that priests are more likely to commit acts of child sexual abuse than other members of the community, but also for the Church itself where sharp divisions have occurred between priests and lay people with regard to the findings of the Australian Inquiry. It is also worth noting that some of the alleged lay offenders were likely to be children themselves (RCIRCSA 2017a, 216). For instance, an incident might involve a 15-year-old youth worker and another youth.

Of the total number of claimants in the private sessions 13.4% alleged that they had been abused by another child (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 34). Of course, these claims are serious, but surely, they ought to be differentiated from claims of child sexual abuse involving an adult and a child. For one thing, the latter involve issues of maturity and power imbalance not necessarily present in the former (Goldstein and Weiner 2007, 438). Further to this point, there is a disparity between the Australian Inquiry’s definition of a perpetrator and the people who have been included in this category. For example, in the section of the final report that lists key terms it clearly states that a perpetrator is “an adult who has sexually abused a child” (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 130). Yet, as just stated, 13.4% of the claims in the private sessions concerned child on child sexual abuse.

The Sacrament of Confession was an area of interest to the Australian Inquiry. In the private sessions, and in other hearings, the Commissioners heard stories of child sexual abuse that concerned the confessional. The stories they heard, fell into three different categories: (1) Crimes of child sexual abuse that are alleged to have occurred in the confessional; (2) Grooming that is alleged to have occurred in the confessional; (3) Perpetrators who confessed to child sexual abuse in the confessional; and (4) Allegations of child sexual abuse that were allegedly disclosed in the confessional.

The Australian Inquiry made numerous recommendations concerning the seal of confession both to the Catholic Church and the Australian Government. Importantly, the inquiry argued that civil law may compel a priest to reveal information received in the confession, and hence break the seal of confession in a number of ways: (1) Through a mandatory reporting regime; (2) Through reportable conduct schemes, which report to the Ombudsman or a similar body; (3) The laws of evidence in relation to civil or criminal proceedings, and; (4) Laws relating to the disclosure to police of a crime or suspected crime.

The Church has generally argued the government’s legislation that requires priests to break the seal of confession infringes human rights. Fr Frank Brennan commented that the confessional should be viewed not unlike legal professional privilege. A letter that the ACBC wrote to Australian Capital Territory Chief Minister Andrew Barr claimed that the laws concerning mandatory reporting, and the sacrament of confession impinge on the human right to freedom of religion. However, it has also been argued that freedom to practice religious beliefs in a civil society is not absolute. In article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights it states that religious ‘freedoms’ can be restricted by law if these beliefs or practices threaten public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others. It is claimed that a civil society’s obligation to protect children from child sexual abuse accords with these restrictions. These obligations are in contrast to cases where priests confessed to acts of child sexual abuse in the sacrament of confession, were forgiven, and continued to abuse children (RCIRCSA 2017b, 50-4).

Yet, it has been argued by Archbishop Christopher Prowse (2018) that these cases are not numerous enough, and the evidence given to the priest who hears the confession not robust enough, to warrant regulating for breaking the seal of confession. He claims that removing the seal of confession will have no effect as far as keeping children safe from predators is concerned, given the dramatic decline in the use of the sacrament of confession. Furthermore, as mentioned above, the information that can be extracted in the confessional is limited in its utility. For example, confessions are anonymous and in many cases priests will have no way of identifying a victim, or of knowing any other significant information such as the date of the event or the location of the event (Brennan 2017). Therefore, the Australian Inquiry cannot establish their recommendations will have a significant impact as far as child safety is concerned. Moreover, the Australian Inquiry has not demonstrated a concern for preserving the positive attributes of the sacrament.

Other recommendations concerning child-safety and the seal of confession that do not damage the sacrament of confession include, increasing the recommended age of children making confessions, making the process of confessions visible (Frank O’Loughlin 2017), and reserving absolution until the penitent has reported his actions to the police and/or attended counselling, where mandatory reporting would occur (Curtin 2017).

The Australian Inquiry recommended that the Australian Government establish a national redress scheme that would pay compensation of up to $150,000 to victims of child sexual abuse over the last sixty years at participating institutions. Participation in the scheme was voluntary (Lansdown 2019, 1). However, the Church was under significant pressure to join including from the then Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull, who made a public address saying the following, “If a Church or a charity or an institution does not sign up, I hope they will be shamed” (Yosufvai 2018). Some churches delayed signing up to the scheme early as there were concerns about the details of the scheme. Importantly, church bodies were considering the implications of the very low standard of proof in the redress scheme. The standard of proof was set lower than the balance of probabilities standard used in most civil cases. A significant concern was that insurance companies would not cover payments made at such a low threshold (Shine n.d.). The standard of proof was referred to as “reasonable likelihood” and could be met by a complainant simply alleging that he or she had been sexually abused without any corroborating evidence or any detailed investigation and in the face of an accuser denying the accusation yet without any right of reply. Consider the following quote from the Australian Government website:

The process for redress is as follows: the applicant makes an application online without a face-to-face interview; there are a number of prompts to assist in filling out the application (e.g. in the section where the complainant must discuss the negative effects of the abuse, there are prompts to suggest possible negative effects such as nightmares, lack of trust in relationships etc.); the application is sent to the relevant diocese (to the “Safe Church Team”) who are given an opportunity to respond with relevant information; the decision regarding payment of the application is then made by independent assessors according to guidelines that have and will not be made public or made available to institutions who have opted-in to the scheme; the independent assessors then make a decision about whether a claim is to be paid and how much is to be paid; and this offer is communicated to the claimant who may accept it and in doing so give up his or her rights to sue the institution (however, the accused may still be sued). The person making the allegation is not bound by confidentiality obligations. Note, the accused will not to be notified of the accusation unless the police choose to investigate or if the Church decides to implement risk management measures in relation to the accused person, e.g. by terminating his or her employment. (Lansdown 2019, 103). We note that there was no penalty built into the Australian redress scheme for false claims for six years. Only in September 2024 did the redress scheme announce on its webpage that people who made fraudulent claims would be prosecuted. For six years, and $1.31 billion dollars worth of payouts later (the current figure concerning redress payouts) (Ransley, 2024), there was no deterrent to those who would make false child sexual abuse allegations.

Note, this is very different to the government’s position concerning the response of government agencies to civil claims of child sexual abuse. For instance, the NSW Government Guiding Principles for Government Agencies Responding to Civil Claims of Child Sexual Abuse (n.d.) includes the following quote which allows for the possibility of false claims. “The Guiding Principles…do not prevent NSW Government agencies from protecting the proper and legitimate interests of the State, which include legitimate steps to defend claims, including where a claim is vexatious, unmeritorious or an abuse of process.”

The government redress scheme has taken over from the Catholic Church’s own redress process, in part, because the Catholic Church in Australia has been accused of not providing sufficient compensation to victims of child sexual abuse. However, let us consider the Archdiocese of Melbourne as a case study. The Archdiocese of Melbourne agreed with the cap of $150,000 as of 1 January 2017 (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 1, 130). When the Melbourne Response was established, ex gratia payments were capped at $50,000, but steadily increased – $55,000 in 2000 and $75,000 in 2008 (RCIRCSA 2017, Vol. 16, Book 2, 321). In total the Catholic Church paid $268 million in response to claims received between 1 January 1980 – February 2015, i.e. prior to the Australian Inquiry. This figure includes payments made from all redress programs and civil proceedings. The average payment was $88,000. (However, this figure includes payments that were very large, sometimes millions of dollars were awarded to a single person) (RCIRCSA 2017a).

According to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (n.d.) national inflation calculator, the amount of $50,000 in 1996 is equivalent to the amount $84, 932.53 (regarding a “basket of goods”) in 2018. However, this rate of inflation only includes a representational selection of goods and services that are acquired by households (Australian Bureau of Statistics. n.d.). It does not include the price of rent and mortgage increases. Rent increases from 2001-2016 increased by more than 100% (Chalkley-Rhoden 2017). Furthermore, the standard of the burden of proof must be taken into consideration here. We might conclude that this money is not too far from the Australian Inquiry’s recommendation that redress be capped at $150,000. A final point that is little known. George Pell matched dollar for dollar the $50,000 figure that the Victorian Government offered for claimants of trauma.

The Australian Inquiry has given substantial impetus to the view that those who complain of child sexual abuse should always be believed. This is evident by its decision to call all complainants of child sexual abuse victims or survivors despite the fact that many of these cases are untested and some are false, e.g. the complaints made against Cardinal George Pell. This view has now made its way into the mainstream media and seems to have influenced members of juries, among others. Consider, for example, the now notorious case of Cardinal Pell. In this instance, a jury trial and two appeals court judges were apparently so moved by the demeanour of the complainant that they ignored or explained away the many inconsistencies in his testimony and discounted the largely unchallenged exculpatory evidence of 23 witnesses for the defence. For example, the dissenting justice in the Second Appeals Court, Justice Mark Weinberg (2019), who is considered to be the leading expert in Australia on criminal law, had the following to say in his judgement,

On the contrary, Weinberg (2019) argued the following: “Objectively speaking, this was always going to be a problematic case. The complainant’s allegations against the applicant were, to one degree or another, implausible. In the case of the second incident, even that is an understatement” (294). In the first incident, there was a significant body of cogent evidence casting serious doubt upon the complainant’s account, both as to credibility and reliability (Weinberg 2019, 295).

Below we examine the case in detail. Before doing so it is helpful to briefly describe the case of Carl Beech and Sir Richard Henriques’ (2016) report into the Beech case, An Independent Review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Handling of Non-Recent Sexual Offence Investigations Alleged Against Persons of Public Prominence. Carl Beech alleged to the police in the UK that he was the victim of an elite paedophile ring in the late 1970s and early 1980s that included MP Harvey Proctor, who was profoundly affected by the false allegations. Carl Beech is now in prison for perverting the course of justice. Yet, questions remain about this case, including: why were the police so quick to believe the fantasist Beech? Henriques report into this case identifies the principal cause of many of the failings in the investigation as poor judgement on the part of police and a failure to accurately evaluate facts. A further contributing factor was the prevailing culture according to which “victims” must be believed. Henriques explicitly warns against describing complainants as victims from the outset of an investigation – this designation is only appropriate after the claims have been tested. To do otherwise is inconsistent with the presumption of innocence that is afforded defendants of accusations (Chapter One).

As Chris S Friel (n.d.a.) remarks,

We also note that the Independent Review by Lord Carlisle (2017) into the case of Bishop George Bell, as distinct from George Pell, highlighted many similar deficiencies in the processes of the Church of England in relation to people who have been accused of child sexual abuse. They are as follows: allegations were not investigated but were rather simply accepted as true without investigation; the harm to innocent persons that would be caused by false accusations was not given significant weight; the Church and commissions of inquiry were both overly concerned with their reputations and ideological commitments; those making allegations were called ‘survivors’ despite the fact that many of these claims were untested and some, at least, were probably false; neither the Church nor the commissions of inquiry ensured that members who were the subject of an allegation of child sexual abuse received justice; the possibility of false memories was not accorded any weight in the statistical findings; and exculpatory evidence was not considered.

The Pell case has many similarities with the Carl Beech case and the George Bell case, but it also has some important differences. One striking difference concerns the complaints process. In the case of Beech and Bell, investigations began after complaints were made. Regarding the Pell case, the Victorian Police (under Operation Tethering) advertised they were seeking complaints against George Pell when none had been made. We might not be surprised that complainants came forward in the political/media climate of the time, as discussed in previous chapters. Indeed, Gerard Henderson has written extensively about the role of certain media outlets in Australia (including the Australian National Broadcaster) in Pell’s wrongful imprisonment. Importantly, he argues that ideologically driven journalists who were hostile to the Catholic Church targeted Pell because of his traditional views. Please read Henderson’s book, Cardinal Pell, the Media Pile-on and Collective Guilt (2021) for a more comprehensive account of the media’s role in Pell’s conviction. Keith Windschuttle’s book, the Persecution of Geroge Pell (2021) is also instructive on this front. I note here, George Weigel said publicly that George Pell was “treated with viciousness by Australian media” (Weigel, 2023).

Most of the complainants were deemed to be obviously delusional. For example, one alleged victim was said to have been raped by Pell in a packed movie theatre (Pell proved that he was not in the country at the time of the alleged rape). The case of witness J, as he is now known, made it to court. Yet, it is surprising that it did so given that even the most basic investigation would have revealed that these allegations were highly implausible, if not impossible. Indeed, in a police interview in 2016 Pell told the police that a rudimentary interview with the many staff and helpers at the Cathedral would prove the allegations to be false. However, the police did not interview many of the exculpatory witnesses in this case; if they had they might have come to the conclusion that the High Court of Australia did nearly four years later.

The seven justices of the High Court of Australia, acting unanimously, in the judgement on this case had the following to say, “The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s guilt with respect to each of the offences for which he was convicted, and ordered that the convictions be quashed and that verdicts of acquittal be entered in their place” (Keifel et al. 2020, 7).

The details of the allegations against Pell are as follows:

The focus of this case-study concerns the adjudication of the High Court of Australia and its binding decision to have this case acquitted and the crimes quashed. There are further concerns that are not mentioned in this judgement, i.e. that one of the alleged victims who died prior to Pell’s trial had earlier denied that the abuse occurred. For a more comprehensive account of this case please see Chris S. Friel’s articles on acdemia.edu and Henderson and Windschuttle’s books mentioned earlier.

The High Court claimed that the jury and two of the three appeals court judges did not question whether it was reasonably probable that the alleged crimes took place and, consequently, the jury and these two judges (who constitute the majority in the appeals court decision) failed to arrive at the correct conclusion, namely, that there was reasonable doubt regarding Pell’s guilt. Indeed, the High Court justices claim that there is “a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted because the evidence did not establish guilt to the requisite standard of proof” (Keifel et al. 2020). The High Court focused on aspects of the unchallenged evidence of the opportunity witnesses which were inconsistent with the complainant’s account. They concern the following three obstacles:

Regarding the first point, it was standard practice at the Cathedral that the members of the church procession, including the choir and celebrating priests would process out of the Cathedral to their next destinations, i.e. the choristers would process to the priest’s sacristy and then move on to the choir room and the priests would process to the priest’s sacristy. It was the practice of Pell, who was the last person in the procession, to remain at the door of the Cathedral to meet and greet parishioners, while the rest of the procession continued to the sacristy. Pell would ordinarily remain at the door with his master of ceremonies, Monsignor Portelli, and greet parishioners for between ten to thirty minutes unless he had an engagement to attend after Mass. Importantly, if the complainant’s allegations were correct then Pell could not have been standing at the door of the Cathedral greeting parishioners, – because the Department of Public Prosecutions argued that there was only a window of 5-6 minutes when the alleged offence could have occurred – although, we will later see that even this window of opportunity is impossible. However, at this stage let us entertain that it is possible. If it is possible, it still stands that the complainant’s case is rendered to be false if Pell is proven to be greeting parishioners at the door of the Cathedral for ten minutes. Ten witnesses gave evidence relating to Pell’s practice of greeting parishioners at the door of the Cathedral for at least 10 minutes. McGlone and Portelli have a specific recollection of Pell greeting parishioners at the steps of the Cathedral on the day of the first alleged offence – it was a memorable day given it was Pell’s first Mass as Archbishop of Melbourne. If Pell was, indeed, greeting parishioners at the steps of the Cathedral for 10 minutes it is not possible that he committed the offence.

Regarding the second point, it is standard practice for an Archbishop in the Catholic Church to be accompanied by a master of ceremonies at all times when the Archbishop is in a Church. Pell was always accompanied within the Cathedral by his master of ceremonies, Charles Portelli. Four witnesses confirmed that the Archbishop would always unrobe with somebody else present. If Pell was always attended to by his master of ceremonies, as is the practice in the Church, then he could not have committed these offences.

Regarding the third point, the assault could not have occurred because the sacristy was a “hive of activity” after Mass, when the assault was alleged to have occurred. The altar servers gave evidence that it was the practice of the Cathedral that the door to the priest’s sacristy was unlocked by the sacristan when the altar servers reached the door, during the procession, notwithstanding that the procession officially ended when the participants bowed to the crucifix in the sacristy. The door was locked prior to this time, notwithstanding the obstruction to the procession, because valuable items where left unattended in the sacristy, including the priest’s bags and belongings. After the door was unlocked the altar servers would complete the procession by bowing to the crucifix in the sacristy. After this time the altar servers, under directions from the sacristan (Potter) would bring in the silverware and the missals to the priest’s sacristy. J’s account of the events is that the two boys broke away from the procession and arrived in the sacristy when nobody was there and when the door was open (indeed, J’s account requires that two doors, including a heavy security door, that were ordinarily locked be unlocked on this occasion). The majority judges in the Court of Appeal (as opposed to all seven judges in the High Court) concluded that it was reasonable for the jury to arrive at the conclusion that the assaults occurred in the 5-6 minutes of private prayer time that the sacristan allowed the congregation for prayer before the altar servers would clean up after the Mass – hence, supposedly after completing the procession and before cleaning up after the service. Or in other words, before a “hive of activity” in the priest’s sacristy.

There are numerous problems with this conclusion: (1) The boys did not cross paths with the 6-12 altar servers; (2) The boys did not cross paths with concelebrating priests who should have gone to the priest’s sacristy to unrobe and collect their valuables which were stored in the sacristy; and most problematic of all (3) The 5-6 minutes needed for the “hiatus theory” simply does not exist. This quote from the High Court judgement presents the problem clearly: “The principal difficulty with the Court of Appeal majority’s analysis is that it elides Potter’s estimate of five to six minutes of private prayer time with the estimate of five to six minutes during which A and B re-entered the Cathedral, made their way into the priests’ sacristy and were assaulted. The two periods are distinct” (Keifel et al. 2020). In other words, it has always been maintained by the prosecution that there was only ever 5-6 minutes when this alleged assault could have taken place. That is because the sacristan said that he allowed the congregation 5-6 minutes of prayer before he began organizing the clean up after Mass. The prosecution took this to mean that there was a 5-6 minute “hiatus” in an otherwise very busy time at the sacristy after Mass. However, as the High Court judges, correctly, remark, this 5-6-minute period began from the start of the procession, the procession itself took about 5 minutes (or the time needed for A and B to make their way to the sacristy). Therefore, there was no available time for the offence to have occurred.

The findings of the Australian Inquiry in respect of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia are alarming. The quantum of complaints made against Catholic priests and church workers of child sexual abuse is very high, as is the quantum of Catholic priests and church workers complained about. Indeed, it is evidence of, what was, a widespread and serious problem of child sexual abuse in the ranks of the Catholic Church in Australia. However, it is important to note that most of the allegations that were made to the Australian Inquiry are historical claims, i.e. claims in relation to incidents that allegedly happened many decades ago. 86% of the claims relate to incidents that allegedly happened in the period 1950-1989 inclusive. Moreover, we have argued that it is highly likely that cases of child sexual abuse have substantially decreased in the Church because of a growing awareness of the damage of child sexual abuse, a growing awareness of the psychology of offenders, the implementation of preventative and reactive structures in the Church and the creation of government laws.

In the course of the discussion of the processes of the Australian Inquiry we have identified a number of shortcomings, including its use of a methodology which tended to inflate the quantum of complaints, its failure to differentiate between serious and less serious allegations, and its insistence that all those who lodge a complaint, including those who make unsubstantiated, implausible complaints, be regarded as survivors.

However, in closing it is important to stress that notwithstanding the criticisms of this analysis, the Australian Inquiry provided an important platform for victims of child sexual abuse to tell their stories of child sexual abuse, and this opportunity and experience proved to be cathartic for many victims/survivors. The resulting momentum in society regarding redress and public apologies proved to be healing for many victims/survivors of child sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions was established under an Order in Council to inquire into the abuse and neglect of children, young people and vulnerable adults in the care of the state and faith-based institutions in NZ, primarily between 1950 and 1999. The NZ Inquiry, like the Irish Inquiry, was commissioned to investigate all forms of abuse including physical and emotional abuse as well as sexual abuse. In contrast to the other inquiries analysed in this book, the NZ Inquiry stated that it would not quantify claims of abuse that were within the legal and social norms of the time, and gave the example of corporal punishment in schools, which was legal for many years. Lastly, it is important to stress that the NZ Inquiry was concerned with abuse that resulted in “serious harm to the individual” (RCIHAC 2020, 12).

The commentary in this section analyses the report that informed the interim findings of the inquiry and that concerns the indicative estimates of the size of the cohorts of people in care over the afore-mentioned period and, importantly, the levels of abuse – Indicative Estimates of the Size of Cohorts and Levels of Abuse in State and Faith-Based Care 1950 – 2019. Notably, the indicative estimate at its high end is that 256,000 people in NZ were abused in state and faith-based institutions between 1950 and 1999. However, at its low end the indicative estimate is 36,000. This is a remarkably wide range even in relation to what are avowedly only estimates. What is the factual basis for these estimates? The figures on the Royal Commission’s website are very different. There it states that a mere 2,000 complainants, i.e. persons, have registered with the Commission (RCIHAC 2020,4).

An additional source of complaints numbers is to be found in the complainant data provided by the NZ care-based institutions themselves. This data consists of 6,500 complainants. It is assumed by the inquiry that most of the 2,000 complainants who registered with the Commission had also made complaints to institutions. Therefore, the number of complainants is assumed to be 6,500. Accordingly, we are entitled to take the figure of 6,500 complainants as the factual basis for generating meaningful estimates of the levels of abuse.

The Commission recognizes that the number of persons who have in fact made a complaint is a tiny fraction of their estimated numbers and, in particular, their high-end number of 256,000; in fact, it is less than 3%. What possible justification does it offer for this extraordinary thirtyfold inflation or even for the low-end figure of 36,000 (a fivefold inflation)? And, to reiterate, we need to keep in mind, that complaints are not necessarily actual offences. The Commission says:

On the face of it, this justification for the high-end figure of 256,000 is not merely speculative but fanciful. Importantly, at the time of writing the second edition of this volume, we note the document with the quote just mentioned cannot be found. It was titled: “Cohort Study and Economic Report, Question: Why does the Royal Commission have so few registrations compared to estimated number of abused people in care?” The comment in this quote is an interesting one. It suggests that the NZ Inquiry expected a very large number of people – a number approaching 256,000 or perhaps 50% of that number? – to come forward to the inquiry and register their abuse. This in turn would justify their speculative figures. However, in the final report of the NZ Inquiry only 2,300 people came forward (RCIHAC, 2024, Part 3). In the light of their own argument underpinning their expectation that at least tens of thousands of complainants would come forward can we not now conclude that the number of instances of abuse is likely to be only a few thousand? Certainly, this discrepancy suggests that their estimated figures are spectacularly incorrect. Interestingly, the Executive Summary of the final report is still claiming the veracity of the high number (RCIHAC, 2024, Part 3). This is notwithstanding that this high number is only one amidst a suite of estimated numbers, but now we discover it did not even meet its own criteria of justification – that a substantial number of the missing 253, 700 would appear to the inquiry at some point in time.

Shortly, in this section the discrepancy between the actual figures and the estimated figures will be discussed. However, before discussing how the 256,000 figure, in particular, was created it is worth noting that this indicative estimate is already being treated in the worldwide press as an actual number rather than a high-end estimate based on a contestable, indeed speculative, methodology with a factual basis of 6,500 complaints. For example, on December 16, 2020, Reuters online ran with the headline, “New Zealand child abuse inquiry finds quarter of a million harmed in state and faith-based care” (Menon 2020). This article begins by making a, supposed, factual claim that 250,000 people were abused in state and faith-based care in NZ. Moreover, the only institution that is named in the article is the Catholic Church, leaving the misleading impression that, as a matter of fact, tens of thousands (at least) were abused in Catholic institutions. Clearly, the figure of a “quarter of a million harmed in state and faith-based care” that the Commission has provided to the media is not a fact and, indeed, as we will see, it is at best a highly contestable speculation.

The inquiry commissioned Martin Jenkins & Associates Limited to provide indicative estimates of the number of people who: (1) were in state care from 1950- today; (2) were in faith-based care from 1950- today; and (3) the numbers of people who were abused in state-based/faith-based institutions from 1950 – today. This task was commissioned to satisfy clause 35.1 (b) of the terms of reference of the commission (RCIHAC 2020, 3).

Martin Jenkins is a consulting firm that advise clients in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Yet, they seem not to be prepared to stand by their own research findings. For example, in their report to the inquiry they remark,

Furthermore, the Royal Commission made the odd comment that the work of the Martin Jenkins group, which the Royal Commission endorsed, “was not an academic or theoretical exercise. The purpose was to provide high-level estimates to help inform our planning for the work ahead” (RCIHAC 2020, 1). Does the Jenkins group, or the Royal Commission, stand by these research findings as reliable, factually based, estimates based on a sound methodology, or is it merely a set of speculations loosely connected to the facts by way of a dubious methodology which they don’t stand by and, as such, it should not be taken seriously, let alone relied upon by the Royal Commission to “inform planning of the work ahead”?

Let us now turn to a discussion of the methodology and findings of the Martin Jenkins Report. We note in advance two general deficiencies which call both the methodology and the findings, and therefore the entire report, into question, especially when these two general deficiencies are taken together. The first general point is that there are major gaps in the factual data upon which the Martin Jenkins group based its estimates. According to the peer review:

The second general point is that the Martin Jenkins group made many contestable, even dubious, assumptions in the creation of their estimates. Many of these are outlined in the peer review. We discuss these in detail below. This is especially the case in relation to its so-called “top-down” method which it states is its most reliable method (more reliable than its other “bottom-up” method).

In short, Martin Jenkins group utilize a methodology to estimate the numbers of survivors of abuse in state and faith-based care that comprises two different methods. The primary estimate uses the “top-down” method. The secondary estimate uses the “bottom-up” method. The two different methods produce alternative indicative estimates. This methodology is explained below.

Utilizing the top-down method the report estimates that 655, 000 people passed through state and faith-based care between 1950 and 2019. This number comes with a warning that the true figures could be higher and hence the true number of abused persons could also be higher. The cohort from faith-based settings is estimated to be one of the largest groups at over 254,000 people (about 31 percent of the total) (RCIHAC 2020, 7). The top-down approach estimates that between 114,000 and 256,000 children in care may have been abused between 1950 to 2019. This is 17 – 39% of the cohort.

Of note, the researchers used, mostly, studies that focused on sexual and physical abuse and, therefore, the assumption is that these numbers are heavily weighted towards the same kinds of abuse (RCIHAC 2020, 8). Indeed, one of the studies used by the Martin Jenkins researchers was the Australian Royal Commission (see section 3.2 of this book for a full commentary on this inquiry). Yet, the findings of the Australian Royal Commission largely concern unsubstantiated complaints. Furthermore, unlike the NZ Inquiry the Australian Inquiry did not make a distinction between serious and less serious cases of abuse, and certainly did not make allowances for changing social norms and laws, as the NZ Inquiry declared it would do. Therefore, the findings of the Australian Royal Commission cannot be relied upon as a guide to estimate abuse numbers for the NZ Royal Commission.

What are we to make of the top-down method and the findings it generates more generally? The estimates arrived at by the top-down method, and the figure of 256,000 “survivors” in particular, relied on the findings of overseas research. However, much of that research is contestable, e.g. the idea that a time lag of decades between the offence and its reporting can be reliably used to make projections (see section 3.2.12), and in any case overseas findings are not necessarily transferable to NZ, e.g. to Māori in NZ child welfare systems (RCIHAC 2020, 3). Most important, its favoured top-down method ignores completely the NZ complaints data, i.e. the 6,500 complainants, and relies exclusively on overseas research and extrapolates from this to generate estimates for NZ child abuse and, in particular, the estimate of 256,000 “survivors”.

Remarkably, the Martin Jenkins researchers are of the view that in order to reliably determine the extent of child abuse in NZ it is unnecessary to make use of what is ultimately the only directly factual basis available upon which an estimate of the quantum of child abuse in NZ could be made, namely, that over the period 1950 to the present i.e. in 70 years, there have been 6,500 persons who complained of child abuse in faith-based and state care institutions in NZ. As we have seen in the Irish, UK, US and Australian inquiries, the principal basis used for estimating the extent of child sexual abuse in the relevant institutions in the country in question has been the complaints made by persons in that country of members of those institutions. Thus, in order to determine the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the US, the John Jay Inquiry relied, obviously, on US complaints data rather than, for instance, NZ data, research and extrapolations therefrom. We conclude that the top-down method is highly unreliable, and the findings generated by it, notably its high-end figure of 256,000 “survivors”, fanciful.

A specific problem with the indicative estimates, generated by the top-down approach, of particular interest to our focus, in this work on child sexual abuse, concerns the estimates of the gender of the abused. For example, the estimates rely on evidence that claims females, in faith-based institutions, are more likely to experience child sexual abuse than males (RCIHAC 2020, 61). However, the evidence in the commissions into the Catholic Church clearly indicate that the prevalence of male-on-male abuse is far greater than male-on-female, or female-on-female abuse. Hence, it is likely that this estimate will not be relevant for the Catholic Church in NZ. Moreover, this estimate is in conflict with the allegations that were made to the NZ Royal Commission. Regarding the gender of those who made allegations to the Royal Commission up to July 2020, 760 were men (57 percent) and 572 were women (43 percent) (RCIHAC 2020, 79).

What of the bottom-up method and its findings? At least its starting point consists of facts about child abuse in NZ and, therefore, its findings – notably, its high-end figure of 65,000 “survivors” – are more likely to be plausible (other things being equal). The bottom-up approach, is an alternative approach which offers a different indicative estimate and, as mentioned above, is considered by the Martin Jenkins group to be inferior to the top-down approach. The bottom-up approach utilizes as its foundation, as mentioned above, actual NZ data concerning abuse, i.e. 6,500 people have made claims of abuse while in state and faith-based institutions in NZ from 1950 to 2019 (RCIHAC 2020, 79). As mentioned above, this aligns it with the other national inquiries analysed in this book (except for the French and Spanish inquiries). However, it diverges sharply from these other inquiries by seeking to use unreported-crime multipliers from NZ and abroad to move from complaints data to estimated numbers of actual offences. The means used to create this estimate or estimated range (the unreported-crime multipliers) is open to question. We return to this issue below.

At any rate the Martin Jenkins group’s application of unreported-crime multipliers suggest that the number of people who have been abused in care is between 5.6 and 10 times higher than the reported number of 6,500. Therefore, they estimate that 36,000 to 65,000 people have been abused in care between 1950 and 2019. This is between 5.5 and 9.9 percent of the total cohort in care, after adjusting for the overlap between settings. It is noted above that the number in the bottom-up estimate is much less than the number in the top-down estimate. The researchers argue that the reason for the discrepancy is due to the fact that the data that was collected for the project did not “capture” all the reported claims of abuse, i.e. they focus on sexual and physical abuse and not emotional abuse, for example. Moreover, it is argued that the multipliers used in this approach also do not cover all forms of abuse that are within the definition of the inquiry. Hence, the Martin Jenkins group favour the larger number, that is, the top-down estimate (RCIHAC 2020, 9). Yet, as mentioned previously, the Australian Royal Commission, whilst not examining all forms of abuse, was more permissive than the NZ Inquiry regarding the severity of the abuse it allowed in its data. Hence, the distinction here is not as great as the Martin Jenkins group imagines. The obvious alternative explanation for the discrepancy is that the top-down approach is deeply flawed, not the least because it ignores the only direct factual basis for estimates of child abuse in these institutions during this period in NZ, namely, the complaints data (i.e. the figure of 6,500).

What are we to make of the bottom-up method and its findings? Let us first consider the reliance on unreported-crime multipliers. Unreported-crime multipliers vary greatly from one crime-type to another, from one jurisdiction to another and across time. Moreover, any credible projection of actual crime numbers of a particular crime type in a given jurisdiction at a particular short period, e.g. one year, has to be based on numerous contextual factors. The proposition that this could reliably be done for a suite of types of offences, e.g. child sexual abuse, physical abuse, across a wide range of institutions over a 70-year period using a smorgasbord of unreported-crime multipliers is an illusion. In the first place, the unreported–crime multipliers are themselves guestimates at best. In the second place, there are inevitably complex context specific factors in play which render the application of imported (from other countries or other crimes or other times) unreported-crime multipliers speculative at best.

Further, more specific points of criticism in relation to the bottom-up approach and its findings are made in the peer review. For example, the peer review mentions that the actual data used by the Martin Jenkins group shows that complaints have decreased over time. Yet, the researchers, while applying the method to the actual figure of 6,500, make the assumption that rates of abuse are constant over time, given the delay in reporting (TDB Advisory 2020, 6). Yet, as is shown in the body of this work, sexual abuse in the Catholic Church has demonstrably decreased. We might also assume other forms of abuse have reduced because of safe-guarding measures that have been introduced in the Catholic Church, i.e. in some cases adults are not permitted to be alone with children. Moreover, we would expect abuse to have decreased in the Catholic Church because less children are in the care of the Catholic Church than was the case historically, especially in the 70s. We assume similar arguments can be made for state-based care and other forms of faith-based care given changes in legislation relating to child sexual abuse and an increased awareness of the harm of child sexual abuse. Furthermore, we would expect that mandatory reporting schemes would influence the reporting of crimes.

As we concluded in respect of the top-down approach, the bottom-up approach while it has the virtue of using NZ child abuse complaints data as its starting point does not offer a reliable method to generate its estimates; accordingly, its findings should not be accepted. They are, at best, guestimates, albeit considerably less fanciful than the ones generated by the top-down approach.

By way of conclusion let us return to the major findings in the NZ Commission’s report of interest to us in this book, namely, the extent of child abuse, and child sexual abuse in particular, in faith-based care institutions. A total of 2,300 people, out of the total of 6,500, alleged to the Royal Commission that they were abused in faith-based care settings. 1,513 of these complaints concerned faith-based care institutions, homes, facilities, schools and 827 concerned, what has been called, wider faith-based care settings (RCIHAC 2020, 38). According to the preferred method of the Martin Jenkins Report, the top-down method, it is estimated that between 53,000 and 106,000 people may have been abused within faith-based care settings (RCIHAC 2020, 39). In the light of the above discussion, we conclude that these estimated figures in the Martin Jenkins Report are fanciful and, as such, should be rejected out of hand by faith-based organizations and other relevant bodies.

On November 2018 the Conférence des évêques de France/French Bishops Conference (CEF) and La Conférence des religieux et religieuses de France/Conference of Sisters and Brothers of France (CORREF) decided to create an independent commission into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE 2021, 11) and sent a mission statement to Mr Jean-Marc Sauvé, honorary vice-president of the Conseil d’État (Council of State) who formed the Commission (CIASE 2021, 17). The Commission’s mandate was to cast light on child sexual abuse in the Church from 1950 to the present time. The Commission focused on child sexual abuse and vulnerable adults. We primarily discuss the findings in relation to children.

There were four distinct stages of the inquiry, which are outlined below.

(1) Socio-demographic

Nathalie Bajos, from Inserm (French National Institute of Health and Medical Research), headed this significant aspect of the inquiry (it is from the Inserm research that we have the controversial estimated figures of child sexual abuse). This research consisted of: (1) an appeal for testimonies from the 3rd June 2019 to the 31st October 2020. (There were 6,471 contacts from the appeal for testimonies that were processed by a team at France Victims); (2) an anonymous online questionnaire, managed by the polling and market research group IFOP (Institut français d’opinion publique), was sent to these contacts (1,628 questionaries were completed which led to 69 interviews); (3) and finally a general population survey which was conducted between the 25th of November 2020 and the 28th of January 2021. This survey was based on quota samples (a non-probability sampling method that is not random in its selection of participants) of 28,010 persons aged 18 and over. The survey was managed by IFOP (CIASE 2021, 18).

(2) Archival and Socio-historical

An archival and socio-historical research project was led by Philippe Portier from the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). This research was based on five different sources: (1) the answers to a questionnaire sent to all bishops and superiors of institutions affiliated with CORREF. This questionnaire concerned the contents of the Church’s archives relating to matters of interest to CIASE (CIASE 2021, 18); (2) public archives (principally from the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of the Interior (the legal branch of the police force)) and the gendarmerie nationale; (3) a survey of forty-eight members of the clergy and of religious orders that focused on the evolution of training with respect to chastity; (4) all of the testimonies addressed to CIASE and others that were publicly available, and; (5) further sources that were publicly available, such as public statistics (CIASE, 2021, 19).

(3) Socio-anthropological.

Laëtitia Atlani-Duault was the lead researcher of the team from the Fondation Maison des sciences de l’homme (FMSH). This research was divided into two parts. Firstly, they did a close study of all of the victim testimonies that were received by CIASE. This included transcripts of 153 hearings from victims that were made to CIASE and transcribed the content of 2,819 letters and emails that were sent to CIASE (presumably from victims). After studying the material, the team chose representative quotes to include in the report. The second phase of the research concerned an analysis of the media coverage of child sexual abuse in the Church in France from the 1950s to the present day. This work was based on two sources: (a) news programmes on French television aired between 1990 and 2020 and (b) articles from the daily press published between 2016 and 2020.

(4) Interviews with predator clerics

Philippe Portier (EPHE) conducted a series of eleven interviews with clerics who had committed acts of child sexual abuse. Florence Thibaut (Professor of psychiatry at the University Hospital Cochin-Tarnier) was the lead researcher of the team that studied the psychiatric reports of predator clerics contained in 35 judicial files. There were an additional twenty interviews with priests and seminarians led by Alice Casagrande (Director of Training, Innovation and Associative Life at the Federation of Private Non-Profit Hospitals and Personal Assistant Establishments).

In addition to these distinct stages there were also ancillary teams, such as a team that looked into the differences in civil law and canon law, etc. (CIASE 2021, 19).

Before discussing the definition of child sexual abuse that is used by CIASE it is necessary to state the legal definition, Article 222- 22 of the [French] Criminal Code, that “inspired” CIASE’s definition. It states, “sexual assault constitutes any sexual violation committed with violence, coercion, threat or surprise or, in the cases provided for by law, committed on a minor by an adult” (CIASE 2021, 282). The Law of the 21st of April 2021 includes offenses without violence, coercion, threat or surprise against children under the age of 15. Presumably the age of 15 was chosen because the age of consent is 15. Here it is important to note that some children, namely children over the age of 15, are legally permitted to have consensual sex, notwithstanding they have not reached the age of majority, i.e. the age of legal adulthood which in most countries is 18 years of age. This is a point that is consistently ignored by these inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church analysed in this book. Concerning the seriousness of the offence of child sexual abuse, it may be considered a misdemeanour or a crime. The statute of limitations varies from ten to thirty years (depending on the seriousness of the offence) from the date that the victim reaches the age of majority. In civil cases the statute of limitations is twenty years (CIASE 2021, 282).

As mentioned earlier, the definition of child sexual abuse that is used by the Commission is “inspired by the Criminal Code” but nevertheless it is not consistent with it. A striking difference here is the age of a minor. The law in France, as far as it relates to sexual abuse considers a minor to be anybody under 18, whilst acknowledging that the age of consent is 15. The French Inquiry considers the age of a child (for its purposes of investigating child sexual abuse) to be anybody under the age of 21 and it does not take the age of consent into consideration (more on this in the next section). Accordingly, a 20-year-old who engages in consensual sex with an older person is not a victim of the crime of child sexual abuse as far as the criminal code is concerned but may be the victim of child sexual abuse as far as the inquiry is concerned. We also note below that the other inquiries into child sexual abuse consider the age of a child for the purposes of identifying child sexual abuse as anybody under the age of 18 (rather than under the age of 21 favoured by the French Inquiry).

Furthermore, the French Inquiry is inconsistent with the criminal code in relation to the matter of power imbalances in the context of determining whether a sexual act is an instance of child sexual abuse and, more specifically, is consensual. For example, within the scope of a power imbalance the Commission includes power that “can be imposed on others” for example, by virtue of one’s sexual category, including the category of man vis a vis the category of woman. This is significant because the Commission argues that a power imbalance may well invalidate consent (CIASE 2021, 54). Accordingly, the mere fact that a person is a man might enable this person to impose his will on a woman in which case the woman might not be able to consent to his sexual advances; it would then be a case of non-consensual sex, i.e., potentially rape.

Otherwise, the definition provided by the Commission at this point is, seemingly, consonant with the Criminal Code. The Commission’s definition here is, “…any sexual assault committed with or without violence, constraint, threat or surprise (rape, sexual assault other than rape, incest, exhibitionism, sexual harassment), any sexual exploitation (procurement) or any abuse of children (corruption of children, sexual propositions made to children, sexual abuse of children, the fixing, recording or transmitting of an image of a pornographic nature of a child)” (CIASE 2021, 53). However, in a different section of the CIASE inquiry the term “sexual violence” is used to refer to actions standardly described as instances of non-violent sexual abuse (CIASE 2021, 17). For example, a caress is considered sexual violence by the Commission. The designation of violence was deemed to be accurate because of the presence of a power imbalance and not in terms of the violence that may have been committed during the act (CIASE 2021, 54). However, this calls into question the content of its above definition. Specifically, what does the phrase “sexual assault with or without violence” [our emphasis] mean if instances of sexual ‘assault’ (including instances of sexual abuse according to the above definition) are necessarily instances of sexual violence? After all, if instances of sexual assault and, therefore, instances of sexual abuse [our emphasis] are necessarily instances of sexual violence then there are, and cannot be, instances of sexual assault or sexual abuse without violence. Moreover, this conflation of the concepts of sexual abuse, sexual assault and sexual violence is inconsistent with the criminal code.

As mentioned in the previous section, CIASE defines a child as a person under the age of 21. This age was chosen because up until 1974 the age of majority in France was 21. (In other words, the Commission chose to use an outdated definition that was in place half a century ago. The age of majority in France is currently 18). This decision puts them at odds with all of the other inquiries into child sexual abuse (CIASE 2021, 52-53). Generally, inquiries into child sexual abuse set the age of a child as 18 because this concords with the UN definition of a child (which is based on the age of majority in most countries). Yet, as we have argued in this book (see sections 2.2.13.1 and 3.2.8), the age of consent in the countries surveyed is often under 18 years of age. This also applies to France. The current age of consent in France is 15 years of age. The age of consent has been stable for heterosexuals since 1945. From 1942 the age of consent for homosexuals was set at 21, in 1974 it was lowered to 18 and in 1982 it was further lowered to 15 (Legifrance 2024). It is currently statutory rape to have sex with a person who is under the age of 15, or under the age of 18 if there is a power imbalance as defined by law (Age of Consent. n.d.).

Interestingly, most of the cases of child sexual abuse documented in CIASE are homosexual and historical in nature. So, setting the age of a child at 21 might be thought to have some merit, given the higher age of consent for homosexual sexual acts historically. However, it could also be argued that this higher age of consent for homosexual acts than for heterosexual acts was unfair. Because of this injustice the age of consent was lowered to 15. Indeed, since 1982 the age of consent for everybody in France, whether homosexual or heterosexual, is 15 years of age. However, notwithstanding this speculation, the French Inquiry, like the other inquires in this book confuse the age of majority with the age of consent. Thus, by the standard of the French Inquiry, and the other inquiries, anybody under the age of majority (or in the case of the French Inquiry, an outdated age of majority) who has sex with an adult is necessarily a victim of child sexual abuse. This is inconsistent with the law. By the standard of the law, a person who is above the age of consent and below the age of majority is only a victim of child sexual abuse if they do not, or cannot consent to sex (for instance, because of a significant power imbalance), or if they did not consent to the act for other reasons.

The legal age of consent is 6 years lower than the de facto age of consent that CIASE is committed to for the purposes of defining child sexual abuse, i.e., 21 years of age. On CIASE’s definition of child sexual abuse the following example is a case of child sexual abuse. A 20-year-old divorcee who already has one child and is sexually mature goes to a bar in the hope of finding a sexual partner. She engages in flirtation with a man at the bar who is 24. He touches her on the thigh in a misguided courting gesture. The gesture is unexpected and unwelcome; indeed, it causes in her a distinctly unpleasant feeling. By the lights of the Commission’s definition, this is an instance of child sexual abuse. However, most people would consider calling this act child sexual abuse to be completely absurd.

A further interesting point arises in relation to Bajos – the head researcher on the Inserm arm of this Commission. She is known for advocating lowering the age of consent to 13, which is almost a decade lower than the age of a child (conflated with the age of consent) that is set in this inquiry (Viot 2022, 63). However, perhaps we should assume that she does not agree with setting the age at which a person reaches adulthood at 21 (at least for the purposes of determining child sexual abuse) given that in the general population survey, which she headed, the people who were surveyed were 18 years and over. Presumably, the reason for targeting those who were 18 years and older was that contra the Commission (or, at least, contra the dominant voices in the Commission) Bajos and her team deemed 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds to be adults. One might reasonably conclude, therefore, that there were dissenting voices within the Commission itself regarding the age at which one becomes an adult. The problem is further compounded when one considers that the legal age of consent is 15 years of age.

Apart from illustrating the inconsistencies within the Commission itself, this discussion draws attention, once again, to a fundamental problem with all of the inquiries (albeit the problem exists in a more acute form in the French Inquiry). While the focus of all of these inquiries is on the nature and extent of child sexual abuse (in the Catholic Church), they never consider the legal age of consent. The consequences of this are twofold. Firstly, by the lights of the inquiries someone who has reached the age of consent (but is under the age of 18 or, in the case of the French Inquiry under the age of 21), and engages in consensual sex (including, for instance, sexual acts of kissing) with an adult person (someone over the age of 18 or, according to the French Inquiry, over the age of 21) is necessarily the victim of child sexual abuse, notwithstanding that they may have engaged in a perfectly lawful act. Secondly, this definitional move of these inquiries is not only inherently problematic, it has had the effect of greatly inflating these inquiries’ recorded numbers of child sexual abuse allegations against priests, member of religious orders and the like in the Catholic Church and, thereby, greatly inflating these inquiries’ estimates of the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

A significant problem with the inquiries into child sexual abuse, dealt with in this book, is their unqualified acceptance of the veracity of all complaints. We have discussed the problems with unsubstantiated claims, in relation to these inquiries, extensively (see sections: 3.2.3; 5.2). The most serious problem identified is the existence of false claims and the harm done to those who are falsely accused of child sexual abuse. It is worth keeping in mind that a fundamental moral principle, that these inquiries explicitly or implicitly rely on, is that of protecting people from harm. Naturally, their avowed main focus is on protecting children from harm. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to ask, why don’t these inquiries feel the need to protect people from the serious harms caused by false allegations; allegations that are made not by victims of child sexual abuse but rather by persons falsely claiming to be victims of child sexual abuse.

Regarding the 6,471 contacts that were made in relation to Inserm’s call for testimonies there is no mention of any attempt to ensure that these allegations (which are contained in the report) are at least credible, much less that they have been investigated, scrutinised and verified. We are told that in some cases the people who were making the allegations to CIASE were making the allegations for the first time. We do not know if the remaining allegations pertain to cases that were reported to the police. We can assume, given that CIASE makes much of the underreporting of child sexual abuse (it claims that underreporting in relation to the general population survey is 96%), that many of these cases have not been reported to authorities and investigated. However, we are told, “very few hoax or fantasist calls were received” (we are not told if these hoax or fantasy allegations were removed from the final count) (CIASE 2021, 56).

Yet many such calls might be prima facie credible, although false. In any case how would CIASE know that there were only a very small number of false allegations without the benefit of, at the very least, an investigation into the truth/falsity of the allegations? As is now widely accepted, to simply assume that those claiming to be the victims of child sexual abuse are making false allegations and, therefore, to refuse to conduct an adequate process of investigation and adjudication of these allegations is to seriously wrong these complainants. But equally, to simply assume that those claiming to be victims of child sexual abuse are making true allegations and that, therefore, their accused are in fact guilty of child sexual abuse, notwithstanding that no adequate process of investigation and adjudication has taken place, is to seriously wrong these accused persons. Surely, one ought to be taken to be innocent until proven to be guilty.

The negligence of CIASE in this regard becomes obvious when one considers that there have been multiple instances of false claims of child sexual abuse, and when one considers the acute evidential problems and political pressures confronting those engaging in the process of verification/falsification of claims of child sexual abuse. Regarding the evidential problems and political pressures, recall the case of Cardinal George Pell. As we saw in the case against him, the false claims were deemed to be compelling by many jury members and two members of the Supreme Court in Victoria, Australia – who were all functioning in an incendiary media environment that was extremely hostile to Pell and, arguably, influenced the adjudicative process – before the unanimous decision by the High Court to dismiss the charges. The High Court dismissed the charges because the allegations of abuse were proven to be, in effect, impossible on closer scrutiny. Please see section 3.2.16 for a full discussion of the Pell case.

Now consider the case of the fantasist Carl Beech. Beech alleged to the police in the UK that he was the victim of an elite paedophile ring operating in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Beech is now in prison for perverting the course of justice. However, before discovering that Beech was lying, the police, who were conducting an investigation, were fooled. As mentioned earlier this led to Sir Richard Henriques’ (2016) report, An Independent Review of the Metropolitan Police Service’s Handling of Non-Recent Sexual Offence Investigations Alleged Against Persons of Public Prominence. It is worth repeating here that Henriques cautioned against describing complainants as victims from the outset of an investigation. He argued that this designation is only appropriate after the claims have been tested and he warned that to do otherwise is inconsistent with the presumption of innocence that ought to be afforded to defendants and those otherwise accused of crimes or serious moral transgressions. In addition to these high-profile cases, the dangers of false allegations are well-known in the literature concerning child sexual abuse (Please see Rosalie Burnett (2016) Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse. Oxford University Press). In closing, CIASE should have been aware of the potential for false claims and should have put in place safeguards to prevent this injustice. They did not.

A notable inconsistency between CIASE and the other inquiries in this book1 concerns CIASE’s claim that child sexual abuse in the Church is not decreasing. Regarding data from the other inquiries, a general trend has emerged concerning the temporal distribution of cases of child sexual abuse, with cases declining from the 1990s onwards. This is consistent with the introduction of safeguarding mechanisms in the worldwide Catholic Church, the creation of laws concerning child sexual abuse, and a growing awareness of child sexual abuse in the community at large and in the Catholic Church in particular. Yet, unlike the other inquiries the executive summary of CIASE claims that there was a resurgence of cases in the early 1990s and most likely the decline from 1970 to 1990 has ceased (from the figures generated by the general population survey) (CIASE 2021, 21). This claim, which would make the Church in France an outlier, relies, in large part, on the “findings” of the general population survey and requires a more detailed analysis.

According to the general population survey 55.9% of the alleged child sexual abuse committed by clerics or members of religious orders is alleged to have occurred in the years 1940-1969 (CIASE 2021, 85). 22.1% is alleged to have occurred in the years 1970-1990 (CIASE 2021, 86). 22% is alleged to have occurred in the years 1990 onwards (CIASE 2021, 88). According to Inserm the number of alleged child sexual assaults committed in the Church since the 1990s, has stabilised, but is still at a significant level (this is contrary to the claim that there has been a “resurgence” of cases from the 1990s onwards, as is claimed in the executive summary). However, notwithstanding Inserm’s decision to cluster child sexual abuse cases into periods of differing lengths in terms of years (e.g. 30 years versus 20 years), it would seem that case numbers are reducing, even by the findings of their survey. For example, 13.3% in the 1990s and 8.7% from 2000-2020. Yet, CIASE argues this does not take into account a lower number of serving priests at these later times. Accordingly, it seems that Inserm’s concern is not with the downward trend of alleged instances of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France in absolute terms (there is clearly such a downward trend) but rather with the question of whether or not there has been a downward trend in the number of alleged instances of child sexual abuse relative to the numbers of priests, members of religious orders and the like (certainly there has been a decline in the latter numbers). Let us first consider the matter of the absolute decline (or not) in instances of child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Church in France.

The figures in respect of allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church arrived at by the French Inquiry are, in light of their methodology, questionable estimates, as we have argued. Moreover, they are inconsistent with the figures provided by the other inquiries in a number of respects. Thus, according to all of the other inquiries there was a wave of cases of child sexual abuse peaking in the mid-1960s 1970s and/or 1980s but reducing from the mid-90s onwards. CIASE’s figures do not show the peak in the 1970s and 1980s. For example, if we were to compare the figures from CIASE with figures from the USCBC (over this particular period) which is representative of the temporal distribution of cases of child sexual abuse worldwide, we see a considerable discrepancy. For example, according to the USCBC, 28.9% of cases of child sexual abuse – as opposed to Inserm’s 55.9% – are alleged to have occurred in the period 1940-1969 and, according to USCBC, 53.9% of cases of child sexual abuse – as opposed to Inserm’s 22.1% – are alleged to have occurred in the period 1970-1990. Here we see that the findings of Inserm are the inverse of the findings of the USCBC. This should have been a cause for concern for Inserm researchers given that the USCBC figures, notwithstanding that they are the figures for the US, are similar in terms of the temporal distribution of allegations of abuse of the major inquiries analysed in this book and given that France is similar in relevant respects to the other countries in which inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church have been conducted. Furthermore, given that the figures in the other inquiries (excluding the NZ, and Spanish inquiries) are based on actual complaints data, which are stronger than essentially speculative estimated figures, we are entitled to conclude that the results of the general population survey are unreliable.

Furthermore, according to EPHE and the data derived from church records of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France, child sexual abuse is also on the decline in the Catholic Church in France. EPHE gives the following reasons for this decline: the decline in the number of clergy and members of religious orders; the withdrawal of clergy from institutions which were dominant in the previous period; the decrease in the number of boarding schools; the closure of petit seminaries; and the reduction of funds for the Catholic educational sector from 1963 onwards (CIASE 2021, 86). Although not mentioned in the report, safeguarding measures introduced by the Church in the 1990s must also play a part in reduced cases of child sexual abuse. Hence, the findings of EPHE directly call into question the claim of CIASE that there has been a recent resurgence of child sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church in France in absolute terms and, thereby, also indirectly call into question the reliability of the general population survey. Furthermore, there are figures from other countries that indicate that contemporary allegations of child sexual abuse against priests, hence factoring in the decline in the numbers of priests, is low. In the USA in 2018 0.07% of priests had contemporary allegations of child sexual abuse made against them, i.e., less than one in a thousand (Donohue 2020). During the period 2000-2010 0.1% of Catholic priests in Australia were the subject of a first allegation of child sexual abuse (RCIRCSA 2017a, 22).

In the other chapters we have discussed problems with delayed reports of child sexual abuse (see 2.2.13.2 and 3.2.12). This, and non-reporting of crimes, is also relevant to the French Inquiry. According to the general population survey, only 4% of the alleged victims reported their crimes to the Church (CIASE 2021, 155). However, as mentioned previously, the Church does not have any record of many of these allegations. Furthermore, according to the general population survey 96% of people who alleged that they were abused by a church-member, did not report the abuse before the survey, and did not report the crime after the survey either.

According to the allegations that were made directly to CIASE, 83% (out of a total of 1,448 testimonies) had already spoken to another person about the alleged abuse before talking to CIASE. Yet, only 21% of the group allegedly spoke about the alleged abuse “straight away” or at the time of the alleged abuse (CIASE 2021, 126). Of this group of alleged victims, the first person who was said to have been told of the alleged abuse, in the majority of cases, was a family member. However, in most instances the revelation was allegedly not acted upon. The Church and/or the State justice system were only allegedly informed in less than a quarter of the total number of instances of alleged abuse (the Church was said to have been informed in 413 cases). The response of the Church was deemed to be unsatisfactory in most of these instances. For example, it was alleged there was no action taken by the Church in regard to 44% of the allegations (CIASE 2021, 127). However, we are told that the “average reaction time” was 10 to 15 years at the beginning of the period under study, to 5 to 7 years by the end of the period (CIASE 2021, 91). From the context of the surrounding discussion, we conclude that “reaction time” means the time it allegedly took to tell somebody of the crime. Hence, the problem with delayed reporting and evidence gathering is as relevant to this inquiry as it is to the others.

CIASE makes much of the silence of victims. It is the justifying reason for the need to conduct the general population survey – to try to estimate the true, very high number, of instances of child sexual abuse. It is emphasized, in regard to this survey, that due to the silence of alleged victims, a very low percentage number (4%) of alleged victims reported these crimes to the Church. Hence, the Church and general public are misinformed about the true extent of child sexual abuse, or so CIASE would have us believe. Yet, interestingly, CIASE does not allow the Church to utilise this same evidence to make the claim that it was unaware of the crimes. For example, CIASE states, “This idea of silent victims allows the Church authorities to excuse, to some degree, their lack of action when faced with a new scandal. They can divert the blame to the victims of abuse; it is their fault for never having reported it” (CIASE 2021, 34). Yet, being unaware that a crime has been committed is, other things being equal, surely a legitimate excuse for not dealing with the alleged offender, and from the fact that the victim may not be blameworthy for failure to report it does not entail that the Church (or the child’s parents or the police?) must be blameworthy.

Of course, this lack of knowledge due to non-reporting is distinct from knowing of the general potential for such crimes and distinct also from neglecting to put in place adequate safeguarding and reporting mechanisms. On this front, CIASE rightly identified lack of oversight as a concern (CIASE 2021, 21). This is consistent with the findings of inquiries in other parts of the world. It can be stated with confidence that institutions without safeguarding mechanisms, reporting mechanisms and adequate oversight are more often susceptible to crime, corruption and abuse of all kinds, including child sexual abuse. However, as we have argued elsewhere in this work, knowledge that crimes are taking place is essential in terms of ensuring an adequate reaction. Moreover, if a crime is reported after significant time has lapsed since the offense took place, it still may be difficult to adequately ensure justice due to the loss of evidence. The alleged failure of the Church to take action in 44% of the cases reported directly to CIASE (not the general population survey) was most likely due in large part to delayed reports and insufficient evidence. This leads us into a discussion of the statute of limitations.

For further discussion on the statute of limitations see section 2.3.4.1. Like other inquiries that call for the statute of limitations to be ignored, changed, or abolished, CIASE’s recommendations are one-sided and disregard the rights of accused persons. The Commission argues the following, “…that two main avenues should be explored: that of so-called restorative justice, and that of the introduction of provisions making it possible to establish the truth, irrespective of how long ago the acts were committed.” Yet, the Commission claims that the only way restorative justice can be had for victims is by way of an investigation that is not a criminal investigation. That said, the proposed investigation should bring recognition of the crimes and prevent future abuse. We are unsure how the identification of alleged offences as crimes can be had without a criminal investigation.

This proposed non-criminal restorative justice avenue was regarded by the Commission as preferable to increasing the time-period of the statute of limitations because of the uncertain outcome of criminal trials in cases with historical allegations (CIASE 2021, 27). However, the rejection of criminal trials and the termination of the statute of limitations overlooks the defendant’s right to protect him or herself against false claims. For example, the statute of limitations protects the accused from an unfair trial due to the difficulty of gathering exculpatory evidence well after the alleged crime allegedly took place. CIASE’s recommendations would lead to a downgrading of this right to protect one’s-self against false claims. Moreover, the Commission is seemingly sceptical about the value of criminal trials in relation to the crime of child sexual abuse. For example, they have the following to say, “…it feels more important to devote time and resources to recognising the status of the victim through appropriate procedures that may lead to compensation, rather than trying to obtain an uncertain and random conviction” (CIASE 2021, 299). However, compensation in the context of civil trials together with convictions in the context of criminal trials have always been mainstays in terms of ensuring justice for both victims and suspects. Furthermore, a “random conviction” will keep a sexual predator off the streets and prevent children and potentially adults from being molested. Let us now turn to a further problem that has arisen in the course of the French Inquiry; a problem to do with the requirement to report the crime of child sexual abuse.

Here we discuss Inserm’s decision not to report its knowledge of crimes of child sexual abuse to the police. Of interest the Commission, like other individuals, was subject to Article 434-1 and Article 434-3 of the French Criminal Code. Hence, the Commission was required by law to report preventable crimes, especially “the ill-treatment, assault or sexual abuse of children or vulnerable persons in cases where the perpetrator is known and is alive” (CIASE 2021, 55). The punishment for not complying with 434-1 is a maximum of three years’ imprisonment and a fine of 45,000 euros. Article 434-3 complements Article 434-1 by the addition of the crime of non-reporting of sexual assaults on minors under 15 years of age.

Regarding the testimonies CIASE received, these legal requirements were not problematic. 21 reports of child sexual abuse were made by the Commission to the public prosecutor and 42 to the Church (CIASE 2021, 55). However, our interest is with Inserm and the question of whether Inserm should report allegations of child sexual abuse made in the general population survey to the police. Here Article 40-1 is also relevant. It reads:

The Commission believed that Article 40 should be respected. This would seem to be the correct decision particularly given the inquiry is strongly critical of church-leaders who failed to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police. It should also be respected because it is the law. However, Bajos takes a contrary position concerning allegations of child sexual abuse that came to her attention in the course of her own research. She does not think it is necessary or desirable to report the many allegations of child sexual abuse that were received in the conduct of the general population survey, including some allegations of recent, and potentially ongoing, instances of child sexual abuse. Instead, she claims that the details of the people who presented for interviews as victims of child sexual abuse should not be passed on to the authorities, because to do so would compromise her research. In an interview of her that took place after the release of the report and after the controversy that ensued because she did not report child sexual abuse victims or instances of child sexual abuse to the authorities, she had the following to say,

We note here that reporting the alleged victims and allegations to the police would not only have been an act of complying with the law, and consistent with the recommendations of the CIASE report as a whole, it would also have helped Bajos’ research. For example, if the base number of allegations in the general population survey were verified as true allegations her extrapolations would have been made on a far more solid empirical foundation.

Inserm, like the John Jay Inquiry, addressed the predominance of male-on-male child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. However, unlike the John Jay Inquiry which relied on a single explanation, they offer a range of possibilities to account for the higher number of male-on-male allegations. Firstly, Inserm argue, as did the John Jay Inquiry, that the predominance of male-on-male abuse was likely the result of greater opportunities afforded to priests and members of religious orders to sexually abuse boys than to sexually abuse girls. Furthermore, they propose that the predominance of male-on-male child sexual abuse might be the result of a clerics’ psychological fixation on pre-adolescent boys. It is argued that the development of a priest’s sexual personality often stops when his vocation is first experienced and hence, is fixed on pre-adolescent boys. It is also argued that this choice demonstrates an idealisation of childhood and the rejection of women (CIASE 2021, 104). Lastly, it is claimed that an atypical psychological profile with a paraphilia of sexual inclination towards male children is also a possibility (CIASE 2021, 167). A difficulty arises here when we consider the large number of male-on-male offences that were allegedly committed by lay people.

Furthermore, it is relevant to ask: why is homosexual orientation never entertained as a possible explanation of, at least some, male-on-male acts of child sexual abuse? Perhaps we should conclude that all of these inquiries are fearful of this inconvenient truth at a time when criticism of the LGBTQI + movement can bring with it severe condemnation, social ostracism, ‘cancelling’ and the like. In light of this, it is fair to say the inquiries side-step these social sanctions by not ascribing a homosexual identity to any of the abusers. However, in doing so, these inquiries reasonably attract the criticism that their reports are ideologically biased.

Regarding the Inserm report, in particular, it is striking that homosexuals are categorised as vulnerable to child sexual abuse in pastoral care but never, at least explicitly, as having the role of the abuser. We agree that homosexuals have been vulnerable to child sexual abuse, particularly in instances of historical child sexual abuse when a homosexual orientation was illegal or highly stigmatized. Here the commission highlights the vulnerability of homosexuals to predatory priests and members of religious orders who offered charitable services to the vulnerable (CIASE 2021, 110), and to priests in therapeutic settings (CIASE 2021, 126). However, it is unbelievable that none of these acts of child sexual abuse concern a homosexual orientation. That said this criticism relates to the Inserm inquiry only. It would seem that different parts of the CIASE inquiry were put together without harmonisation. In the EPHE report, another section of the CIASE inquiry, it is reported that nearly half of the predators who were interviewed identified as homosexual (80% for those who only assaulted male children), and one third of the total number of predators identified as bisexual. All of the predators who only abused female children identified as heterosexual (CIASE 2021, 149). Thus, we have another important instance of an internal inconsistency in the French Inquiry; an inconsistency which taken in conjunction with the other inconsistencies already mentioned, serves to undermine the credibility of the French Inquiry as a whole.

It is often argued that inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Church must be independent of the Church to free the inquiries from bias. However, more often than not, the inquiries are free of untoward Church influence. Certainly, the ones analysed in this book were not improperly influenced by the Catholic Church; to the contrary, the views and interests of the Church were heavily discounted. Regarding the CIASE Inquiry Michel Viot argues that no effort was made to ensure that the Commission was not only independent of church influence, but also independent of ideology that is anticatholic (Viot 2022, 31). Here he notes numerous public statements that demonstrate the principal investigators of the Commission have an animus against the Catholic Church (Viot 2022, 61). For example, Bajos who oversaw the team who ran the general population survey had the following to say in a column in September 2018 (two months before CEF and CORREF decided to create an independent commission) concerning abortions (and relatedly deaths associated with backyard abortions),

Furthermore, what do we make of CIASE’s comments in the inquiry about the “school form” which is described as being a dangerous Catholic creation. They argue,

In order to emphasise, as it views it, the sustained, pervasive and systematic, institutionally induced character of child sexual abuse, the Commission devotes an entire subsection (CIASE 2021, Section 1: IV: C: Patterns of Abuse and Means of Control, 109-126) to what it refers to as “the many institutional patterns of power construction by the clergy-perpetrator” (CIASE 2021, 109). The existence of these powerful, malign, historical and ongoing, institutional forces have supposedly been identified on the basis of 45 semi-structured interviews of victims and “verified statistically” by the responses to the 1,428 respondents to their questionnaire. These interviews and questionnaire responses yielded, supposedly, six forms of institutionally induced abuse, four of which corresponded to four different kinds of Catholic institution, namely, the parish, the school, charitable and related institutions, and the family. Thus, parish abuse is described as: “embodied by the almighty priest. This pattern is linked to the power conferred on the parish priest within the “parish civilisation”, i.e. within the centuries-old system set up by the Church with a priest in the role of the head of the community who accompanies the faithful on a daily basis while inspiring and controlling his parishioners’ practices” (CIASE 2021, 109).

The remaining two forms of supposed institutional abuse were therapeutic abuse and prophetic abuse. Thus, therapeutic abuse is described as follows:

There are two points to be made here. Firstly, these characterisations of priests, schoolteachers and members of other occupations in Catholic institutions were not deduced or inductively inferred from the content of a handful of interviews of victims. How could they be, given that the Catholic Church in France over the best part of a century has consisted of thousands of institutions and hundreds of thousands of priests, members of religious orders and the like, and given, that most of these victims were not historians of the Catholic Church or possessed of sociological/psychological expertise (and therefore, not repositories of the historical, sociological/psychological generalisations, quasi-theory and other such content evident in these characterisations) but rather sources for the acquisition of knowledge of their personal experience? Rather these characterisations, like the above characterisation of the ‘school form’, were interpretations of the content of these interviews and were reflective of the prior quasi-theoretical (or, more likely, ideological – see below) commitments of the researchers. Indeed, some of the ‘interpretations’ of the empirical content provided by victims, in particular, flatly contradicts the theoretically (ideologically?) informed interpretations of the researchers. For instance, victims’ reports contradict the researcher’s claim that acts of sexual abuse of children are necessarily acts of sexual violence, e.g., that a sexually motivated gentle caress by a priest of a child is in and of itself an act of sexual violence (see below). Thus according to CIASE’s own account: “[some alleged victims were uncomfortable with the term sexual violence]…(for example, when the abuse consisted of caresses, sometimes accompanied by tender words); although the Commission is clear that, in its opinion, there is absolutely no doubt that such acts do indeed constitute violence” (CIASE 2021, 54). Apparently, victims’ self-understanding of their experiences of sexual abuse is to be overridden if it conflicts with the Commission’s prior ideological perspective. So much for CIASE’s avowed commitment to respecting the veracity of victims’ reports.

Secondly, a questionnaire of this kind could not possibly verify these characterisations of the roles of priests, teachers et al. in Catholic institutions; 1,428 questionnaire responses do not demonstrate widespread child sexual abuse over a 70 year period in an institution as large as the Catholic Church in France, let alone powerful, malign, historical, and ongoing, institutional forces centred on institutional roles and causing a pattern of sustained, widespread child sexual abuse. Accordingly, the Commission has not in fact verified its prior characterisations.Clearly, the overwhelmingly negative characterisations provided by the Commission of the institutional roles of priests, schoolteachers and other occupations in Catholic institutions are not in fact based on empirical evidence. What are they based on? The inevitable conclusion is that they are ideologically driven characterisations. It might be argued against this that the Commission has demonstrated the pervasive and systematic, institutionally induced character of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church by recourse to its estimates of the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (based on its general population survey). However, as we have argued (see section 4.2.5), these estimates are grossly inflated or, at the very least, unreliable. In any case, by the Commission’s own account, only a small fraction of Catholic priests and members of religious orders were or are child sexual abusers, i.e., 2.5-2.8% (CIASE 2021, 157); a number that is not sufficient to underpin this very strong claim that a principal cause of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church is to be located in the nature of the institutional role of priest et al., as these characterisations imply.

Another aspect of the French Inquiry that displays its ideological commitments is in its definition of child sexual abuse as a form of sexual violence against children. Thus, the questions in its general population survey were:

On the relation between sexual abuse, power and sexual violence, the Commission has this to say: “Sexual abuse thus conventionally refers to maltreatment or abuse of a sexual nature, i.e. an abuse of power expressed in the sexual domain, or even “a seizure of power through sexuality.” Therefore, any threshold which may be crossed in the case of sexual abuse, is, first of all, that of the power conferred on an individual by society or by an institution – in this case by the Church on its official representatives. It is, therefore, a question of relationships of power expressed though sexuality but which are generally part of a continuum with other forms of violence expressed in other fields.

According to CIASE, what is the difference between sexual violence and sexual abuse? Sexual violence encompasses situations in which one person imposes on another unsolicited acts or propositions of a sexual nature. “This expression covers forced or attempted sexual intercourse, touching of the private parts or forced kissing, exposing oneself naked, or sexual harassment. Sexual abuse specifies the setting in which the violence occurs” (CIASE 2021, 53-54). Despite its avowed intention to offer clear definitions of child sexual abuse, there is very considerable conceptual unclarity in evidence here. That said, it seems that the Commission is committed to the following: Instances of child sexual abuse are necessarily expressions of a relationship of power and, in addition, constitute instances of sexual violence. Moreover, given the Commission’s characterisation of the Church as an institution engaged in the establishment of “specific power relationships” between priests and members of their parish, including children, between teachers and their pupils, and so on – and given the inherently institutionally-based character of the “clergy-perpetrator” – the phenomenon of child sexual abuse (aka sexual violence directed at children) perpetrated on a large scale, would seem to be more or less inevitable in the Catholic Church. In short, apparently according to the Commission, the Catholic Church is an institutional incubator of clergy-perpetrators.

Aside from the utter failure of the Commission to provide adequate empirical evidence for its (admittedly often unclear) claims there is the matter of incoherence of its theoretical perspective. Consider the following three glaring theoretical confusions in play here. Firstly, the concept of abuse, including but not restricted to abuse of authority, is simply not the concept of violence. Therefore, the concept of sexual abuse is not the concept of sexual violence. Abusing one’s authority by requiring sexual favours of one’s employees is not necessarily to engage in violence. Insisting that it is merely unhelpfully expands the meaning of the term, “violence”, and ultimately obliterates important distinctions. For an elaboration of these somewhat elementary conceptual points see, for instance, the entry in a standard encyclopedia of philosophy (Coady 1998).

Secondly, one can engage in sexual abuse, indeed sexual violence, without standing in any relationship of institutional power, as happens frequently in cases of rape perpetrated by strangers. Nor is a relationship of institutional power typically the fundamental driver in instances of child sexual abuse. In particular paedophiles will use and create opportunities to abuse pre-pubescent children whenever and wherever they can; and, of course, they will use institutional positions of power, including positions in churches, schools and so on to do so. But the idea that it is the institutional position rather than their prior sexual disposition, indeed, sexual addiction, that is the principal causal driver of their acts of child sexual abuse confuses the causal driver with one of the opportunities for its expression. Thirdly, those in positions of institutional authority and, in particular, Catholic priests, do not necessarily or even typically engage in abuse of their authority, let alone perpetrate acts of sexual violence against children. Or, at least, if they do the Commission has not shown this and, more specifically, has not established, as it seems to think, either an empirically based or a theoretical or quasi-theoretical link between the institutional role of Catholic priest and that of child sexual abuser. The conceptual confusion here seems to stem from a failure to grasp or acknowledge the distinction between legitimate authority and power. Those with legitimate authority have power but their power is justified and constrained, unlike those with power but without legitimate authority.

One source of these confusions among many sociologists, including feminist sociologists, in France and elsewhere is the influential work of Michel Foucault. Foucault and those influenced by him often view social power as, more or less, constitutive of all relationships and, in particular, at work in institutions in the form of a coercive process of ‘normalisation’ in which individuals are controlled, indeed constructed. Thus says Foucault: “The individual which power has constituted is at the same time its vehicle” (Foucault 1980). This conception of human relationships, including between men and women, and of institutions in terms of coercive power relationships is wildly overstated and ultimately incoherent. There are many relationships between human beings that are not essentially relationships of power, and many human institutions provide collective goods and are principally reliant on the voluntary, rational action of individuals rather than coercion.

Importantly, for our concerns in this work, the Catholic Church as an institution, while it concedes the importance of power (and its potential for harm as well as good), is committed to a worldview that posits an objective morality and the inherent moral and spiritual value of human beings. As such, the worldview of the Catholic Church is diametrically opposed to this Foucauldian conception and like conceptions. However, the ideology that is apparently at work in the French Inquiry has a number of the features of this Foucauldian conception, as we have just seen. Or, at least, these features are on display in its essentially antagonistic standpoint towards the Catholic Church. Moreover, these untoward features have evidently infected the Commission’s analysis of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

It is evident that the French Inquiry’s description and analysis of the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church reveals its ideological bias. However, it would also seem that the Commission has an ideologically based, activist intention. Certainly, it seems to want to initiate, what it regards as, church-reform through the inquiry. For example, the commission is critical of the fact that no decision has been made regarding the diaconate of women (CIASE 2021, 314). The Commission argues this is relevant because most child sexual abuse is committed by men. Therefore, they claim that the strong presence of women in the Church would protect against sexual assault (CIASE 2021, 315). This may be true. However, it does not follow from this that the presence that is required is the ordination of women. Moreover, we might add that the use of the term “sexual violence” instead of “sexual assault” is indicative of activism and ideology (please see section 5.3 for a full discussion of CIASE’s decision to call all acts of child sexual abuse acts of violence). For example, according to the Commission it is a term that is used by political activists and feminists. However, it is not used to describe sexual assault in the other inquiries or in law (CIASE 2021, 53). It is also argued by the Commission that it found no causal link between celibacy and sexual abuse. Yet, it still makes a recommendation (number 4) regarding celibacy. For example, it argues, that it is necessary “…to identify the ethical requirements of celibacy devoted to the gaze, in particular, of representation of the priest and the risk of conferring on him a position of heroism or domination” (CIASE 2021, 149) (Armogathe et al. n.d. 5).

Finally, the inquiry also made some suggestions regarding canon law. For many in the Catholic Church it might be a welcome change to see an inquiry that was prepared to engage with canon law. However, the Commission has come in for significant criticism for their recommendations. For example, it is argued the inquiry made suggestions relating to doctrine and the nature of being a priest without the competence to do so or without regard for the gravity of the proposed changes. Regarding the recommendations it is argued that seven are of a doctrinal nature: R3, R4, R7, R10, R11, R34 and A43 (Armogathe et al. n.d. 4).

This section concerns the Catholic Church’s response in France to victims of child sexual abuse in as far as it is reported in the CIASE report. We note here that the sections titled “Measures that were put in place by the Church” (to combat child sexual abuse) (see 1.2.6; 2.2.8; 3.2.10) in the other chapters in this book, in countries other than France, contain detailed information regarding the many child safety measures that the Church has put in place in these countries to address the problem of child sexual abuse. Unfortunately, there is not much that is positive in the French Inquiry concerning the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse in France. However, contra CIASE’s view of the matter, there is reason to doubt that the Catholic Church in France is an outlier in respect of the implementation of child safety measures. Of interest is annex 3 which claims to show the evolution of child safety measures including legislation concerning child sexual abuse in French society in parallel with the evolution of such measures in the Catholic Church in France (CIASE 2021, 82). It is claimed that unlike the Catholic Church in the other countries discussed in this book, that were the subject of child sexual abuse inquiries, the Catholic Church in France lagged behind French society more generally. Let us now look at some of the evidence presented in the report to determine whether the Church really was completely behind the rest of society in this respect.

The Commission rightly claims that in France from 1960-1970 there was, what they are calling, a “pro-paedophile movement” that considered a child to be a sexual being capable of making his or her own decisions (CIASE 2021, 81). We have already discussed this in section 2.2.7. However, it is worth repeating some of the points here. The seventies saw the influence of French postmodern theorists who argued in favour of child/adult sex. For instance, Michel Foucault, along with other French intellectuals, including Jacques Derrida, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, signed a petition in 1977 in response to the imprisonment of three men for sexual crimes against 12-and 13-year-olds. The petition states,

Regarding this case, there were clearly laws in place to protect children from sexual abuse, and the premise that many French people were in favour of child/adult sexual relationships must be rejected. However, the influence of Foucault and other French intellectuals in the gay community was/is significant.

In this same period CIASE argues that the Catholic Church focused on protecting predator priests and ignored alleged victims of child sexual abuse. Here it is important to keep in mind that delays in reporting mean that most cases of child sexual abuse would likely not have been known to the Church in this period. Regarding the general population survey, 96% of people who made allegations did not ever inform the Catholic Church of their alleged sexual abuse. It is further claimed by CIASE that the Church began to recognise the rights of child sexual abuse victims after the 1990s and, therefore, became aware of the problem. However, according to CIASE it was only from 2010 onwards that the Church began reporting cases to the judicial system and imposing canonical sanctions (CIASE 2021, 24).

Yet, in evidence that might be inconsistent with the criticism that the Church in France was lagging behind society as far as child sexual abuse measures were concerned, CIASE claims, in a different section of the report, that it is only in the 1980s that paedophilia began to be understood as, what it calls, a “social problem” and it was at this time that awareness levels of child sexual abuse in French society began to change in this respect. They remark, “Indeed, in the early years of the period studied by the Commission, French society as a whole did not show any sustained interest in sexual violence in general or sexual violence in the Church in particular” (CIASE 2021 209). They also remark,

Yet, what is the “sheer prevalence” of child sexual abuse that the Church had to cope with during the period in question? Here we need to remind ourselves that most instances of child sexual abuse were either not reported or only reported after decades long delays. To reiterate: 96% of people who alleged in the general population survey that they were abused by a member of the Catholic Church have still not reported these allegations to the Church or the police. Of the figures from the testimonies that were made to CIASE the reporting of alleged crimes happened in less than a quarter of the allegations, and there was a significant delay (at times over a decade) before the crimes were reported to the Church. This very important point concerning the significant time gap between the alleged offence and the reporting of it is often lost in discussions of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (CIASE 2021, 208). Indeed, the John Jay Inquiry was right to stress that the Church needs to educate the public and, for that matter, members of inquiries into child sexual abuse, on the temporal distribution of allegations of child sexual abuse and, in particular, on the decades long time-gap between the date of the alleged offence and the date that it was reported to the Church or the police.

Here are some notable later developments the CIASE report mentions concerning the Church’s response to child sexual abuse. In 2000 the General Assembly of the Bishops took place in Lourdes in France. At this assembly the institutional response to child sexual abuse was discussed by the French bishops who committed to improving their responses to allegations of child sexual abuse, particularly concerning the reporting of crimes to police (CIASE 2021, 208). The inquiry claims that from 2000-2015 many safeguarding features were instituted in the Church in France (CIASE 2021, 250). In 2016 diocesan Listening Units were instituted following the Bishops’ Plenary Assembly (CIASE 2021, 251).

As demonstrated in this analysis there are significant problems with the CIASE inquiry. Most importantly, it provides unreliable, indeed inflated, figures in respect of the nature and extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France. Here follow some of the main problems that we have identified with the general population survey that generated these inflated numbers: (1) The definition of child sexual abuse is too broad; (2) The survey did not sufficiently take into consideration participant bias; (3) The survey did not take into consideration the possibility of false allegations. We argued that this problem is compounded in the case of allegations made anonymously; (4) The survey’s rejection of a decrease in absolute numbers of child sexual abuse over time is incorrect (which has been established in all of the other inquiries); (5) The average age of alleged victims in the general population survey remained stable. Yet, this is not consistent with the data from other inquiries which show an increase in the age of alleged victims over time. It is also not consistent with the data from the victim testimonies that were made directly to CIASE; (6) The figure of 4% of reported abuse did not correspond with the documents in the Church archives; (7) The estimated number of victims alleged in the general population survey, when cross-tabulated with its estimated number of perpetrators produced a number of victims per perpetrator that is implausibly high; (8) The percentage number of alleged victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of clerics is arguably too low to be statistically significant (less than 0.1%); and (9) Due to the low initial starting number of survey respondents, especially with respect to allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and the biases of the survey, which are inevitable with quota sampling surveys in relation to complex matters such as child sexual abuse, it is not legitimate to use these low numbers to extrapolate reliable estimates of the extent of child sexual abuse in the French adult population as a whole, let alone the Catholic Church in particular. Moreover, the figures and analyses in the different reports of the inquiry are often at odds with one another, resulting in an inquiry that is overall internally inconsistent.

Furthermore, regarding the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse, the inquiry ignores or understates: (1) The difficulty of responding to instances of child sexual abuse when most victims, who actually reported the abuse, only reported the abuse decades after it had allegedly occurred and; (2) The extent of the child safety measures that were put in place by the Catholic Church in France many decades ago. In addition, the inquiry has come under fire for analyses that are ideologically based or ill-considered and inappropriate. For example, notwithstanding their lack of expertise, they boldly make recommendations that concern changing Catholic Church doctrine. Not surprisingly, the inquiry has been criticised and its findings have been challenged. Surprisingly, the response to even measured criticism has been extreme in some quarters. For example, the letter of criticism that is mentioned in the report from Armogathe et al. had the extraordinary result that all of the participants of the letter were removed from their academic positions.

On the 10th of March 2022 the Congreso de los Diputados (Spanish Congress of Deputies) requested that the Defensor del Pueblo (Spanish Ombudsman) organise a commission to investigate allegations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 41). The Commission commenced in July 2022 and concluded in September 2023 (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 43). The principal source for the numbers of allegations of child sexual abuse came from a general population survey of 8,013 people (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 48). This survey is discussed in more detail in the following section. However, for now it is useful to state some relevant figures. 1.13% of the adults who took part in the survey alleged they were abused in a religious environment. This percentage number (1.13%) was then considered to be representative of the Spanish population, and the Commission concluded that 1.13% of all adults in Spain were sexually abused in a religious environment. According to the survey 0.6% of the people who took part in the survey alleged they were abused by a Catholic priest or member of a religious order (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 49).

Additional information concerning alleged church-related child sexual abuse came from the El País newspaper investigation and the Victim Support Unit (which was established for the sake of the Commission) (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 50). 487 testimonies of alleged victims were provided to the Victim Support Unit. Of this number 334 of the alleged victims were interviewed in person. Information on the remainder of cases was obtained through, what the commission are calling, indirect testimonies. (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 51).

Regarding the total number of 487 alleged victims, 410 were men (84.19%) and 76 were women (15.61%). The majority of the alleged victims were between 30 and 75 years of age at the time of the interview. 186 of the alleged victims or 39% were between 50 and 65 years of age at the time of the interview. 97.2% of the alleged victims of sexual abuse were under the age of 18 when the abuse allegedly occurred (decades earlier in most cases) (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 52). Regarding the nature of the alleged abuse, the most common type of child sexual abuse was fondling, which allegedly occurred in three out of four cases. What the commission considers “passive masturbation” allegedly occurred in 22 % of alleged cases and active masturbation in 16.2 % of alleged cases. There were 115 allegations of rape. Specifically, 51 allegations pertain to anal penetration (10.47%), 46 allegations pertain to oral penetration (9.45%). 18 people claimed to have been subjected to vaginal penetration (3.7%) (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 52).

The Commission argued that it was necessary to conduct a general population survey of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in order to obtain, what they are calling, “a solid empirical basis” of the prevalence of child sexual abuse in Spain, that they could, in turn, compare with the results of other European inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, and non-Catholic areas of childhood socialization (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 166). However, by definition a “solid empirical” result is one that is anchored in empirical reality, i.e., in facts that can be observed and measured, it is not something that arises from speculation. As mentioned previously in relation to the general population survey in the French Inquiry, the results from this kind of survey of child sexual abuse are unreliable and in this respect are different from other kinds of surveys using a similar methodology but with respect to much less complex phenomena such as, for instance, market research in relation to preferences for consumer goods and voting polls (see 4.1.6 for details).

Accordingly, we argue that the Commission is not on solid empirical grounds in large part because child sexual abuse is a complex, contested phenomenon that is not well-suited to surveys of this kind. One of the many problems with such surveys pertains to the representativeness of those surveyed in relation to the larger group about which inferences are being made. More specifically, a survey of this kind of 8,013 people in relation to child sexual abuse is not necessarily representative of an entire population of many millions. The Commission remarks, “according to this survey, child sexual abuse in religious environments is an issue that has affected 1.13% of adults in Spain” (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 49). Yet, this is not true. According to the survey 1.13% of the survey respondents, i.e., 90 respondents said they had been sexually abused as children in a religious environment. Indeed, the solid empirical base in relation to the survey is as follows: they conducted a survey, 8,013 responded, 1.13% i.e., 90, said they had been sexually abused as children in a religious environment, period. The claim that therefore 1.13% of adults in Spain have been sexually abused in a religious environment is an entirely speculative estimate.

Moreover, comparing the unreliable results of one survey with the unreliable results of a second survey is not a helpful practice for those interested in getting at the truth; the fact that two sets of unreliable results are similar does not confirm either one or both sets. Nor, of course, is it helpful to replicate a methodology that generated unreliable results. Yet, as we saw earlier in relation to the NZ Inquiry, these inquiries often utilise the flawed methodologies and findings of other inquiries. Notably, the NZ Inquiry was influenced by the Australian Royal Commission. Specifically, it utilized the figures of the Australian Inquiry notwithstanding they were unsubstantiated and largely incompatible with the stated aims of the NZ Inquiry (for example, the NZ Inquiry stated that it was only interested in serious forms of child sexual abuse and that it would take into consideration the socio-historical context of the time – the Australian Inquiry utilised all allegations in its data, notwithstanding that many instances of alleged abuse were of the less serious kind and were not crimes at the time of the alleged acts). We now see this in relation to the French and Spanish inquiries – in particular, the Spanish Inquiry compares its “findings” with the “findings” of the French Inquiry.

A somewhat detailed description of the figures provided in the Spanish Inquiry is as follows. 8,013 people were surveyed. 4,802 people were surveyed by means of a telephone call. 3,211 people were surveyed using an online platform (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 167). Regarding the telephone surveys, 113,126 calls were made seeking participants, and of this number 23,991 people were contacted. Of the 23,991 people who were contacted, 4,802 people (20% of the people contacted and approximately 4% of calls made) agreed to participate in the survey. The other people who were contacted either refused, or did not meet the representation quotas, or the call was cut off (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 168). This last point is significant given that many of the people who were contacted may have hung up the phone because they were offended, potentially for the reason that they suspected that they were being asked to participate in a survey about child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. If so, this might undermine the claim that the survey had identified a representative sample of the population.

Regarding the people who agreed to participate in the survey, as mentioned above, 11.7% alleged they had suffered sexual abuse before they had reached the age of 18 (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 170). 34.1% of the respondents who claimed to have been abused alleged that the abuse occurred in the family setting, 17.7% in a public institution, 9.6% in a non-religious educational setting, 9.5% in a non-family social setting, 7.5% in a work setting, 7.3% on the internet, 5.9% in a religious educational setting, 4.6% in a non-educational religious setting, 4% in a leisure setting, 3% in a sports setting and 2.6% in a health setting (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 172). Here a pertinent question arises, why not a Commission into familial abuse, or abuse in non-religious settings?

As mentioned previously 1.13% of all the survey respondents alleged that they had been abused in a religious environment. 0.6% of all the survey respondents alleged that they were sexually abused as children by a Catholic priest or a member of a Catholic religious order. This amounts to 6.1% of all people who alleged that they were abused. Yet, this figure is not consistent with the figures of people who alleged they were abused in a Catholic setting (5.9%). The Commission concludes that this inconsistency can be accounted for by including in the group of alleged abusers, people who were in the religious settings but had a lesser connection to the institution. Furthermore, they argue that some of the respondents may have been confused about the denomination of the institution where the alleged abuse took place. In other words, they claimed that the abuse occurred in a Catholic religious setting but, in fact, it occurred in a non-Catholic religious setting (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 176). Certainly, many of these allegations have inconsistencies in them. Furthermore, men accounted for 53.8% of all people who alleged they were sexually abused in a religious setting. Men account for 64.6% of all people who alleged that they were sexually abused by a Catholic priest or a member of a Catholic religious order (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 183). We note here these figures are different from the actual figures in this report. As mentioned previously, in the actual figures 84.19% of alleged victims are men. This is more in keeping with global trends on this topic.

Most of the alleged victims of child sexual abuse did not report the alleged abuse to an adult or to the Church or other authority. Those who did (43.5%) told their parents and to a lesser degree their friends or other family members. 0.4% claim that they reported the alleged abuse to the Church. This near 100% non-reporting to the Church seems unbelievable (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 179).

The Commission argues that the data resulting from the general population survey suggests there has probably been a decrease in child sexual abuse in Spain over the last few decades. They also argue that this conclusion is consistent with the results of most of the other inquiries (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 49). In the Spanish Inquiry it is argued, based on the general population survey, in particular, that there is a probable decrease in cases of alleged child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain because the prevalence of allegations of child sexual abuse are higher as the ages of the participants increase. For example, in the religious education setting 2% of people who alleged they had been abused were in the age group between 18 and 29. Whereas, in the same category 11% of people who alleged they were abused were aged 65 and over. The same trend is evident in the category called “religious setting”. In this category 3% in, what has been called, the younger respondent group made allegations of abuse compared to 10% in the 65 and over age group (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 173). It is argued the global trend of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church show the majority of cases of abuse occurred in the 1960s and 1970s (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 49). They argue the reason for this decrease is because of an increased awareness of the prevalence and damage of child sexual abuse and the effectiveness of safeguarding mechanisms that were introduced into the Church (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 191). That said, for reasons mentioned earlier the results of this inquiry, based on the general population survey, cannot be taken seriously, given the flaws in their methodology.

In the Spanish Inquiry we see the same problems that are evident in the other inquiries. To begin with there is a reliance on unsubstantiated claims. For example, and as mentioned earlier, it is impossible to substantiate the estimated figures of child sexual abuse produced in the general population survey. Moreover, the testimonies provided to the Victim Support Unit were also unsubstantiated (Defensor de Pueblo 2023b, 29). Furthermore, the age of consent was not taken into consideration. The age of a child, as defined by the Spanish Inquiry is conflated in the inquiry with the age of consent. The age of a child is defined as under 18 years of age: this is five years higher than the age of consent in Spain during the 1960s-1990s period when most of the alleged child sexual abuse occurred. The age of consent was 13 years of age. For example, consider this remark in the inquiry (author’s translation):

Another concern is the Spanish Inquiry’s somewhat extreme secularist perspective; a perspective which displays a lack of understanding of the nature and purpose of the Catholic Church and, indeed, an antagonism to it. For example, the Spanish Inquiry argues that being born into a very religious Catholic family is a risk factor in respect of child sexual abuse (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 54). Certainly, blind obedience or excessive deference to religious leaders or, for that matter, other leaders may mean a child is at greater risk of sexual abuse, supposing these leaders are sexual predators themselves or are willing to conceal the acts of child sexual abuse of others. However, deeply held religious beliefs ought not to be conflated or confused with blind obedience or excessive deference to religious leaders. Moreover, it could be argued that moral and spiritual formation, such as that provided by Christian, including Catholic, institutions can help protect a person, including a child, from victimisation. Furthermore, the inquiry argues that the nature of the priest as mediating God’s presence creates a power-imbalance that puts children and vulnerable adults at risk of sexual abuse (Defensor de Pueblo 2023a, 50). This claim overlooks the spiritual nature of the relationship between God, the priest and the child and, more generally, manifests a naïve view of the relationship between adults and children and, in particular parents and children, and priests and children.

Parents, teachers and priests, indeed adults in general, necessarily stand in an authority relationship to children; to refuse to stand in this relationship would be an abnegation of responsibility, given their responsibility to educate children and induct them into a moral community; and, in the case of priests into a Christian community, supposing their parents wish this to be the case. However, authority is not the same concept as power, although it involves some exercise of power. Moreover, in the case of priests, the authority is in large part moral authority and a constitutive principle of the priest’s mediating role is that of love. In short, as is the case with any authority relationship, including those of parents and priests vis a vis children, there is a risk of that authority being abused. But the implication of the claim made by the inquiry is that because of this risk authority relationships should be emasculated rather than, say, subjected to monitoring and oversight mechanisms. This would be unwarranted and in any case would entail the inquiry going well outside of its remit.

A familiar aspect of these inquiries is the anger directed at the bishops who challenge the inquiries and who are committed to protecting the interests of the Church in the face of, as they see it, unfair misrepresentation of their responses to child sexual abuse. There is a general tendency to paint these bishops as overly concerned with the reputation of the Church at the expense of victims of child sexual abuse. Certainly, this criticism has been true in some instances in the past and even in some instances today. However, as has been remarked earlier in this book, it does not follow from this that the remedy for this problem is that the Church should divest itself of any interest in its reputation. No institution can reasonably be expected to ignore an unjust portrayal that undermines its reputation. The Spanish bishops collaboration with the commission was characterised by the commission in the following way:

The Spanish bishops were right to be cautious especially given the ensuing sensationalistic and misleading media reports of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain that were based on the findings of the inquiry. For example, the findings of the general population survey lends itself to the following style of media report, “Investigation estimates that there are more than 440,000 living victims of sexual abuse that took place within the Spanish Catholic Church” (Domínguz and Núñez 2023). Let us now turn, for a contrasting view of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain, to an independent report that the Spanish Bishops Conference commissioned regarding child sexual abuse in its ranks.

The inquiry from the Spanish Ombudsman contains many of the problems that we have discussed at length in regard to the other inquiries, such as the use of unsubstantiated claims, the use of a general population survey to estimate numbers of abuse etc. Yet, unlike the NZ and the French inquiries the Spanish Inquiry makes the erroneous claim that its estimation of figures of child sexual abuse is “a solid empirical basis”. However, as we said in the discussion, a “solid empirical” result is one that is anchored in empirical reality, i.e., in facts that can be observed and measured, it is not something that arises from speculation. A further concern with the Spanish Inquiry is its excessively secularist perspective, even to go so far as to belittle Christianity regarding some of its findings and recommendations. On the other hand, the inquiry from Cremades and Calvo-Sotelo is not ideologically driven and more reliable in terms of its findings. For example, Cremades and Calvo-Sotelo claim that there have been 2,056 allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain from 1950 to the present day with a caveat that this number is likely to under-represent cases of child sexual abuse – the Ombudsman’s Inquiry netted a number of 440,000 cases of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Spain in the same period (although they did not state the full number in the inquiry only the percentage number, this number of 440,000 was calculated by El País newspaper).

A final point, in taking the approach of concentrating on actual cases (but also acknowledging underreporting), Cremades and Calvo-Sotelo were able to invest more of their time in the creation of recommendations that would address child safety mechanisms and compensation. By contrast, inquiries that utilise general population surveys expend much of their analysis trying to justify the typically extraordinarily high estimated numbers extrapolated from their surveys. We believe this time could be better spent addressing current concerns in safeguarding.

Unlike the other inquiries in this book the Church in Italy has not, thus far, released a report of historical cases. It has produced two reports. The first report, Proteggere, prevenire, formare. Primo Report sulla rete territoriale per la tutela dei minori e delle persone vulnerabili (Protect, prevent, train. First report on the territorial network for the protection of minors and vulnerable people) concerns the years 2020-2021. The second report Proteggere, prevenire, formare. Seconda rilevazione sulla rete territoriale per la tutela dei minori e degli adulti vulnerabili (Protect, prevent, train. Second survey on the territorial network for the protection of minors and vulnerable adults) concerns the year 2022. The Church has stated it will write a report in respect of alleged instances of child sexual abuse that have allegedly occurred during the period 2000-2020 in the Catholic Church in Italy. Furthermore, it has remarked that the process is ongoing and evolving. However, the decision to concentrate on contemporary cases has provoked the ire of victim lobby groups who wish to see an inquiry in Italy that is similar to other high-profile inquiries with a full report of historical allegations. For example, consider this headline at Reuters in response to the release of the Italian Report, “Victims call Italy Church’s abuse report ‘shamefully’ limited” (Pullella 2022). Due to this dissatisfaction victim lobby groups, lawyers and members of the Church are calling for an independent inquiry. Much of this section will discuss the merits of the approach taken by the Catholic Church in Italy as opposed to so-called independent inquiries. However, first we discuss details of the two reports that have been released.

In 2014 the Catholic Church in Italy issued its first guidelines regarding all types of abuse of children and vulnerable adults and in the years that followed child safety and the safety of vulnerable adults became a primary concern. In 2019 statutes were approved by the Permanent Council that led to the establishment of diocesan and regional services to combat abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy. The first task was to appoint an expert contact person in each diocese to raise awareness in the Church and in church-agencies. In the following months 226 diocesan representatives were appointed. Of these, there was an even mix of priests and lay people. These representatives are often supported by a group of experts. At the time the report was published 73% of dioceses had begun the safeguarding activities that were approved by the Permanent Council. Also, in 2019 the National Service for the Protection of Minors (NSPM) was established by the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI Conferenza episcopale italiana). In the following year the NSPM proposed the creation of Listening Centres. The Listening Centres were designed to be places solely devoted to responding to abuse in ecclesial settings (but primarily sexual abuse in ecclesial settings). For example, they provide information to anybody on the topic of abuse, hear allegations of abuse, and refer people to specialists. At the time of this report 98 Listening Centres were established which covers two-thirds of the dioceses (CEI, 2022 premessa).

A further development of the 76th General Assembly of the Italian Bishops was the adoption of an action plan in May 2022. One of the requirements of this action plan was the creation of an annual report. The aim of the report was to inform the CEI of the work of the Servizio Diocesano o Inter-diocesano per la tutela dei minori/Diocesan or Interdiocesan Service for the Protection of Minors (SDTM/SITM), the Listening Centre and the Servizio Regionale per la tutela dei minori/Regional Service for the Protection of Minors (SRTM) in the Italian dioceses (CEI 2022, Introduction). The goal of the report is to outline the structure, and the activities of the parties with respect to the prevention of and response to abuse, and to present and analyse the data collected (CEI 2022, 10-11). The foci of this discussion are the figures concerning abuse that were collected at the listening centres. However, a brief overview of the report is provided below for completion.

The second report pertains to the year 2022. It follows the same format as the first report. However, it also compares and contrasts its results with those in the first report. In doing so, it is evident that overall, the work of safeguarding in the Catholic Church in Italy is increasing. For example, the main activities of the SDTM/SITM increased in scale. Meetings have tripled from 2020 to 2022 (from 272 to 901) (CEI 2022b, 25) and the number of participants in training has increased (from 7706 to 21188) (CEI 2022b, 26). Regarding the data from the Listening Centres, we also see an increase in their activities. Notably, the number of people contacting the centres increased. For example, the number of people who contacted the centres in 2022 was 374 compared to 34 in 2020 and 48 in 2021 (CEI 2022b, 55). Other differences in Listening Centre trends have emerged. Importantly, more people who were not victims of abuse contacted the Listening Centres and the prevailing motive for contacting the centres was to obtain information. For example, in 2022 the number of non-victim contacts was 87.7% compared to 47.7% for the two-year period of the first report (CEI 2022b, 57). Furthermore, in 2022, 81.9% of the people contacting the centres did so in order to obtain information as compared to 20.8% in the combined 2020/2021 report. 18.1% contacted the centres in 2022 to lodge a formal complaint of abuse as compared with 53.1% in the preceding report (CEI 2022b, 58).

There were 32 allegations of abuse made to the Listening Centres in 2022. By contrast there were 89 complaints made in the combined two-year period 2020-2021. 18 of the allegations of abuse made in 2022 concerned allegations of historical abuse, while 14 of the complaints concerned recent acts of abuse (CEI 2022b, 59). Most allegations of abuse described in the second report concerned events that allegedly occurred in the parish setting (17 out of 29). The types of abuse alleged in the second report are consistent with the earlier report. For example, the most common complaint is of inappropriate behaviour or language (20 complaints), followed by touching (14 complaints). There are 3 complaints of sexual intercourse. Single complaints sometimes refer to multiple victims and instances of abuse. Hence, the 32 complaints refer to 54 alleged victims (CEI 2022b, 61). Regarding the age of the alleged victims, 25 out of the 54 or 46.3% are in the 15-18 age range. Moreover, 19 out of the 54 or 35.2% are vulnerable adults (CEI 2022b, 63). Accordingly, only 10 of the 54 or 20% are 14 years old or younger.

We note that the age of consent in Italy is 14 years of age, or 16 years of age if the person who engaged in a sexual act with the child is held to have a relationship of authority and, therefore, power over the child, as would be the case with priests or lay educators etc (Diritto.it). This is not to say that an adult or youth over the age of consent cannot also be abused. However, we note that, as is the case with the other inquires, the Italian Inquiry defines a child as being anybody under the age of 18. Yet, caution is called for when discussing allegations of the sexual abuse of children (i.e. those under the age of 18) whose age is above the age of consent and who have consented to the acts in question. We note here that children are legally permitted to engage in sex if they have reached the age of 14, i.e., 14, 15, 16 and 17-year-olds. Moreover, in Italy, children who have reached the age of 16, i.e., 16 and 17-year-olds, are legally permitted to engage in sex with those who stand in an unfavourable power relationship to them. (Naturally, there might be other considerations in play, e.g., Catholic priests have made a vow of celibacy, so they are not free to engage in sexual relations with 16- and 17-year-olds or, for that matter, with anyone else.).

Further, an adult who has had sex with a consenting child who has reached the age of consent, cannot be required to pay compensation to the child on the grounds of having sexually abused a child; nor can the child subsequently as an adult make a legal complaint of child sexual abuse. See the discussions in sections 2.2.13.1; 3.2.8; 4.2.3. We note, therefore, that being labelled a child sexual offender in these instances of lawfully engaging in sex with a post pubescent youth- (‘child’) is false, strictly speaking, or, if it is meant that the person in question is a moral rather than a legal offender then, at the very least, it is highly misleading. Moreover, in many of these instances the adult ‘offender’ who is usually, but by no means universally, an adult male, is wrongly referred to in the media and elsewhere as a paedophile. This is not only completely false (since paedophiles by definition engage in sex with pre-pubescent children), but also a serious injustice, and potentially dangerous, to the ‘offender’ in question, given that to label someone a paedophile automatically carries with it a severe stigma. Indeed, those rightly or wrongly believed to be paedophiles typically suffer massive, irreparable reputational damage and, not infrequently, violent attacks; and those who are wrongly believed to be paedophiles typically suffer, in addition, psychological trauma.

Concerning the gender of the alleged victims referred to in the allegations of child sexual abuse made to the Listening Centres in 2022, there are 44 females and 10 males (CEI 2022b, 63). Concerning the gender of the 32 alleged offenders, 31 of the 32 are men and there is one woman. The average age of the alleged offenders is 43 (CEI 2022b, 65). Of the 32 alleged offenders, 10 are clerics, 10 are members of religious orders and 12 are lay people (CEI 2022b, 64).

As is evident from this commentary the Italian Inquiry is taking a very different approach from, say, the French Inquiry. For example, it is focused on recent and actual allegations. Moreover, the presentation of the data is clear and not clouded by ideological language, such as by calling a caress “sexual violence”. Furthermore, the Italian reports only focus on topics within their remit. For example, they do not comment on issues such as the ordination of women. Yet, notwithstanding the professionalism of these reports they have been criticised in the media and many people are now demanding, what they are calling, an independent inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy.

As mentioned previously, the Italian Inquiry is committed to providing annual reports. Furthermore, there will be a report on cases dating back to 2000 (Staff writer 2022). The Church is focusing on cases pertaining to instances of child sexual abuse that are alleged to have occurred in recent years, i.e. contemporary rather than historical cases, because there is a much higher probability than with historical cases that these involve allegations concerning people who are alive and capable of reoffending. Moreover, recent cases are more likely to be able to be adequately investigated and adjudicated, given that the evidential problems that arise in historical cases are much less pronounced in recent cases. At any rate, although it is important to try to somehow ameliorate past instances of child sexual abuse that cannot be undone, in focusing on recent cases there is the opportunity to actually prevent instances of child sexual abuse, something the contemporary Catholic Church is very much concerned with and able to do something about. Furthermore, this presentation of recent allegations is more representative of the Church in Italy as it is now.

As we have seen in this book, there have been numerous inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, notably the inquiries in the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France and Spain analysed in this book. (Note that there have been various other inquiries, such as those in Germany and the Netherlands, that have not been analysed in this book). Leaving aside, the questionable findings of the French Inquiry, all of these inquires have established that most allegations of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, in the countries that have held inquiries, are historical in nature. Moreover, it has been established that there has been a significant downward trend in instances of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church since the early to mid-1990s and, indeed, recent instances are very few in number. In short, in the Catholic Church in these countries child sexual abuse is essentially an historical problem. Moreover, there is currently an inquiry underway, as we have seen, in Italy; its results are thus far consistent with this claim of the historical nature of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Yet, notwithstanding this there have been many calls for, what is referred to as, an independent inquiry into the Church in Italy, i.e. independent of the Catholic Church, including from Hans Zollner (leading safeguarding expert in the Catholic Church). He says, “We can have the best intentions but as long as we do it in-house nobody is going to believe us” (Pullella and Amante 2022). Evidently, Zollner is suggesting that while people trust independent inquiries, they do not trust the Church to conduct an inquiry. Here we need to ask: independent of who or of what? The assumption is that it is only independence of the Catholic Church that is in question. However, we need to ask the wider question. Should a potential independent inquiry into the Catholic Church not only be independent of the Catholic Church but also of other organisations, groups or ideologies with an interest in an inquiry’s findings, who might seek to influence an inquiry in a manner that might undermine the objectivity of its findings? For instance, would such an inquiry be independent of pressure emanating from those with an anti-Catholic ideological agenda, e.g., Bajos (the lead researcher in the French Inquiry who has accused the Pope of contributing to the legitimization of feminicides). Or independent of those with a strong financial interest in these findings, such as organisations seeking to maximise payouts from the Catholic Church to alleged victims of child sexual abuse in the context of redress schemes with very low evidential standards (payouts which, incidentally, now amount to billions of dollars worldwide)? For example, as we have previously mentioned in section 2.2.14 a former employee of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) claimed in a lawsuit that SNAP exploits victims of child sexual abuse by treating them solely as potential litigants who might financially boost SNAP and who might financially benefit lawyers who are intimately connected to SNAP (Circuit Court of Cook County 2017). Furthermore, consider the following quote in relation to where the money made in large payouts might be going, in this case relating to payouts to Indigenous people in Canada:

More of this below. Here we need initially to distinguish between an independent inquiry in the sense of one that is commissioned and funded by the Catholic Church but not conducted by the Catholic Church, e.g., the US-focused John Jay Inquiry, the French Inquiry and the inquiry conducted into the Catholic Church in Spain by the law firm Cremades & Calvo-Sotelo, and an inquiry which was wholly independent in the sense that it was commissioned, and funded by non-Catholic organisations, e.g., the Australian Inquiry and the Spanish Inquiry commissioned by the governments of the respective countries. Notice that findings of inquiries that the were independent in the sense of being commissioned and funded but not conducted by the Catholic Church exist on a spectrum at one end of which child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the country in question is characterised as systemic and not decreasing (French Inquiry) and at the other end as essentially historical (John Jay Inquiry). Moreover, the French Inquiry casts the Catholic Church in a worse light than some of those that were wholly independent of the Catholic Church, e.g. the wholly independent Irish Inquiry concedes that the actual numbers of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Ireland have been in sharp decline for a few decades. The proposition that the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in France is far greater (and not decreasing) than in Ireland, Australia (or the US or the UK etc.) is not credible.

However, the more general point is that most of these independent inquiries in either sense of that term have been found to be deeply flawed in various ways and, in particular, many, e.g., the NZ, French and Spanish inquiries, have generated unreliable, indeed fanciful, figures pertaining to the extent of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in their respective countries. In short, the fact that an inquiry is independent of the Catholic Church in either sense is no guarantee that it will conduct a credible, methodologically sound, objective study of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Indeed, many of these so-called independent inquiries (i.e., so-called independent because independent of the Catholic Church) have manifested a complete lack of objectivity and an alarming antagonism to the Catholic Church. So much so that it has become clear that politicians, policy makers and members of the public, not to mention Catholic bishops, priests and lay people, ought not to put their trust in the findings of these inquiries, and certainly not in the sensationalist media reports on the findings of these inquiries. Indeed, the trajectory across the years regarding the degree of unreliability of these inquiries is itself alarming. That trajectory is from the reasonably reliable, i.e., the John Jay Inquiry held in 2002 to the unreliable, e.g. the Australian Inquiry in 2013 to the fanciful, e.g. the French Inquiry in 2018.

At this point a question needs to be asked: Who are the people who are calling for an independent inquiry? Are they themselves independent or do they have an axe to grind? Often the pressure here comes from victim lobby groups working in conjunction with lawyers. In Italy the head of the victim lobby group Rete L’Abuso Francesco Zanardi has spoken to the press in favour of an independent inquiry, often mentioning there are an estimated 1 million victims of child sexual abuse in Italy (Staff writer 2022b). However, disappointingly, the mention of this figure is disingenuous. For example, on the Rete L’Abuso website Zanardi explains in detail how Mark Vincent Healy came to this figure. This is a description of the methodology:

Healy does not only have one figure. Based on the figure of 50,148 priests in Italy, Healy multiples 2%, 4%, 6%, and 8% of the 50,148 figure by two estimates of victims of child sex offenders. In the first instance he uses Andrew Greeley’s prediction of 50 victims for each offender. In the second instance he uses Richard Sipe’s estimate of 250 victims for each offender priest. On his website Zanardi argues the minimum number is 200,000 possible victims and the maximum number is 1 million (Zanardi 2021). Hence, he knows the estimate he gave to the media is incorrect, or at least heavily biased.

However, it is not even a correct assessment of this highly speculative exercise. The range of 200,000 to 1 million is based on Sipe’s much higher estimate of victims per offender priest, i.e., 250 victims per priest. On the basis of Greeley’s figure, which is utilised in the same estimate, the minimum figure is 50,148 and the maximum number is 200,592 (Zanardi 2018). Yet, there are further problems with these figures. The projected victim count is based on paedophile offenders who can have a very high number of victims, i.e., 250. Healy does not take into account child sexual abuse that is not committed against pre-pubescent children. That is, it is based on the assumption that the alleged offending priests are all paedophiles. However, many of the offenders are not paedophiles; rather they fall into the category of offenders who target pubescent and post-pubescent children (children being defined as under 18 years of age), or they may not have a demonstrated fixation on pre-pubescent children. Note that these offenders, by contrast with paedophiles, tend to have a much lower rate of victims per offender; unlike paedophiles, many of these offenders are not in the grip of a de facto form of sexual addiction. Thus, recent figures in the Italian report, mentioned previously, show that the majority of cases of alleged sexual abuse do not fall into the prepubescent category. Moreover, we would expect contemporary allegations to be much higher if, as Zanardi suggests, 8% of currently serving priests in Italy are paedophiles or, at least, are offenders with a very high number of victims per offender.

Furthermore, this analysis does not allow for the general temporal distribution of cases of child sexual abuse, that shows cases peaked in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, and sometimes early 90s, and generally declined in the mid- 90s to the present time. In short, it assumes cases have been steady over time. According to Zanardi, the lobby group has identified 178 accused priests, 165 priests who were convicted by Italian law enforcement and 218 new cases (Carlo 2022). A jump from 396 actual cases to 1 million cases, even taking into consideration possible unreported cases, would be remarkable; indeed, given that the 1 million cases are not actual cases, but merely guestimates based on a flawed methodology, it is quite literally unbelievable. The problems with estimated figures of unreported cases of child sexual abuse have been discussed in sections 3.3.2; 4.2.5; 4.3.2.

In brief, while we know that the numbers of alleged child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church do not represent all actual instances of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, we cannot know the scale of this unreported abuse especially if the process of estimating unreported cases is based on unsubstantiated allegations, as these inquiries rely on. That said, we can choose to proceed to make estimates using a sound methodology and reasonable assumptions; alternatively, we can irresponsibly use methodologies and assumptions that generate inflated numbers. Certainly, it is estimated figures, effectively guestimates, based on unsubstantiated allegations that are often reported in the media as actual instances of child sexual abuse and many people reading these reports falsely believe these figures to refer to known actual cases of child sexual abuse. This damages the reputation of the Church considerably and unjustly. Here, to reiterate, the Church ought not divest itself of all concern for its reputation, doing so, perhaps in part, as a result in the past of placing its reputation and the reputation of abusive priests above justice and the wellbeing of victims of child sexual abuse.

Let us now undertake a brief survey of some of the processes and outcomes of the independent inquiries analysed in this book to form a view of what might be the consequences, if the Catholic Church in Italy decides to commission and fund an independent inquiry or if it decides to support an inquiry funded and undertaken by some external organisation, such as the Italian Government. We have already elaborated in detail the general problem that so-called independent inquiries have a tendency (although the John Jay Inquiry is an honourable exception) to inflate (in the case of the NZ, French and Spanish inquiries, grossly inflate) the numbers pertaining to the nature and extent of the problem of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church (and in the case of some inquiries, e.g. the French Inquiry, downplay its essentially historical character). In one or more of these respects many so-called independent inquiries have shown themselves to be unreliable. Accordingly, the Catholic Church would be well advised to proceed with extreme caution; indeed, very possibly not proceed to establish or support an independent inquiry on pain of its likely lack of objectivity. Moreover, there have been significant other problems with respect to violations of the natural rights of priests and members of the religious orders by a number of these inquiries. We note that the Catholic Church has a particular obligation to ensure that the rights of Catholic priests and members of its religious orders are not violated. Here, criticism of the Irish Inquiry is instructive. For instance, the Irish Inquiry did not accept that the Catholic Church in Ireland was on a “learning curve” regarding child sexual abuse, notwithstanding, that there is significant evidence to show that the Catholic Church’s response to child sexual abuse was, in many cases, in line with that of other institutions and the broader community, and in some cases, even ahead of it. Here, we note that in 2000 the Catholic Church in Ireland requested police checks for candidates for the priesthood and was told that it was not eligible for this service. Furthermore, in Judge Sweeney’s investigation into the report of the Irish Inquiry he found that the inquiry went outside its mandate in unacceptable ways in its zeal to build cases against priests accused of child sexual abuse.

Importantly, Sweeney observed that the inquiry dismissed the accused clerics’ exculpatory evidence and did not use reasonable standards of proof. For example, if there were different recollections of events the inquiry chose the alleged victim’s testimony without justifying its reasons for doing so. Furthermore, in its final report the inquiry did not include letters of response from priests who were accused of child sexual abuse. Sweeney remarked that in going outside its mandate the inquiry did not observe minimum rights of natural and constitutional justice. Importantly, the accused priests were not accorded the protection of their constitutional right to retain their good name as accused persons who had not been found guilty of the offences in question after an appropriate process of investigation and adjudication (Sweeney 2013, 15). As we saw in Chapter Two (section 2.3) the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania also made these criticisms of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Inquiry. Indeed, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered those parts of the Grand Jury Inquiry to be permanently redacted in order to protect the appellants’ (Catholic priests) constitutional rights that the inquiry had violated (Saylor 2018, 1). The likelihood of further such rights violations is another reason against establishing or supporting an independent inquiry; and certainly, one of a similar kind to those just discussed.

Furthermore, we can assume that an independent inquiry in Italy would also make recommendations concerning standards of evidence to be used in redress schemes, as other inquiries have done. We have described the low standard of evidence that is required for the Australian Government Redress Scheme (i.e. there is no requirement for corroborating evidence (see section 3.2.15). Should the Catholic Church in Italy be prepared to comply with a redress scheme that requires that a payment be made to almost every applicant without effective scrutiny? Leaving aside the extraordinary financial cost there is the matter of the implications of guilt associated with making a payment. The implication of these payments is that the allegations made by the payee were true and, therefore, the accused priest (or member of a religious order) a sexual abuser of children or, often, if the media acquire the information, a paedophile. Yet the allegation is in many cases essentially untested; it is simply an allegation.

Moreover, what of criminal cases? Recall that the Australian Inquiry pushed for the following amendment concerning criminal cases i.e. cases in which the accused could be sentenced to a term of imprisonment, if found guilty.

This comment should be of particular concern in the light of the case of Cardinal George Pell who was wrongly imprisoned of child sexual abuse on the basis of the testimonial evidence of his alleged victim (testifying as an adult decades later). (Fortunately, Pell’s conviction was later overturned by the High Court – see section 3.2.16). Importantly, the alleged victim’s demeanour was said to have been so compelling that the jury were prepared to set aside the exculpatory evidence of 23 people. If George Pell himself, had not later provided proof that the prosecution’s case rested on an inconsistency that made the allegations impossible he would have died in prison. Should this be worrying to the Church in Italy? Yes, because these inquiries and the negative media attention they receive often coincide with a strong desire for a “scalp” or a scapegoat.

In Canada we have seen specific allegations of what were called “horror” crimes made against church-workers that ultimately were proven to be false. Yet, these allegations from Pine Creek residential school were only proven to be false because the basement of a church, that was built on the site of a residential school, was excavated and the bodies that were expected to be there were not found (Malone 2023). Yet, other allegations relating to residential schools in Canada cannot be proven one way or the other. Recall the consequences for the Catholic Church in Canada after the announcement of the “discovery” of 215 graves at Kamloops residential school: – nearly 100 churches were destroyed by arsonists evidently acting from a motive of revenge. The situation in Canada is illustrative of the incendiary effect (literally in the case of Canada) of unproven allegations that are widely reported in the press, often as facts.

We might also remember that the public are inflamed by sensationalistic media reports that are based on the executive summaries of these inquiries, that are given to the media. For instance, it is highlighted in the executive summary of the Australian Inquiry, without much clarification that 7% of Australian priests are predators. Yet, this is an erroneous claim that, if it is to be released to the media, should be released with considerable warnings about the speculative nature of the claim. Furthermore, the executive summary of the French Inquiry highlights its estimation that 330,000 people in France are victims of child sexual abuse at the hands of priests and church-workers – another highly speculative estimate. Yet, as we have argued in this book, these estimates are rarely reported as speculative estimates in the media; they are, more often than not, presented as facts about instances of actual child sexual abuse (or, at least, as actual documented allegations). These inquiries are well-aware of the impact their media releases will have, and yet do not ensure that this kind of misleading reporting is corrected. Here, we note the Australian Royal Commission had a media department. Should this media department not have corrected the many falsehoods in the media that are supposedly derived from its media releases? It was irresponsible of it not to do so. Do we hear from the French Inquiry when the media reports that the 330,000 estimated cases of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church mentioned in the inquiry are actual instances of child sexual abuse or, at least, of actual documented allegations? We do not.

This book has provided a comprehensive account of these inquiries and their flaws in this and other respects. In doing so, we take ourselves to have provided, in effect, sufficient reason to cast very serious doubt on the justification for, or wisdom of, the Catholic Church in Italy establishing or supporting an independent inquiry. Some claim that the Catholic Church will not be trusted to have unearthed the truth if it conducts its own inquiry. However, the more appropriate question might be: Could an independent inquiry, at least of the kind established in other countries, be trusted to establish the truth? In the light of recent so-called independent inquiries, the answer is surely in the negative, at least at this point in time, in the current climate, and in the context of the likely lack of de facto independence of such an inquiry, given the ideological and financial interests in play.

That said, victims have the moral right to be heard and also to receive compensation for crimes committed against them by clerics, members of religious orders and church-workers. Moreover, regarding the transnational justice of compensation, the question will inevitably be asked, why should a victim of clerical child sexual abuse in, say, Australia, receive a redress payment when a victim in Italy is denied a payment merely because he or she experienced abuse in Italy where no compensation scheme exists? It is morally wrong to silence victims of child sexual abuse and refuse to redress the wrongs done to them where this is possible. Accordingly, we believe that victims of child sexual abuse should be compensated financially and provided with other means of support, as appropriate. However, this can be achieved without an independent inquiry and potentially, without a redress scheme depending on the legal costs to victims to make use of civil courts and the effectiveness of these courts in obtaining justice for victims. If there is to be an inquiry, whether undertaken entirely independently of the Catholic Church or not, then it is imperative that this inquiry be genuinely independent, including with respect to any potential ideological bias it might have or any potential financial interests that might exert undue political pressure on its work and, thereby, skew its findings. Moreover, such an inquiry must not only be competent in relation to its research activities, and in respect of any investigative and adjudicative functions it might have, but it must also be subject to significant oversight to ensure that this competence is in fact exercised appropriately to ensure the integrity, reliability and credibility of its methods and findings.

Moreover, safeguards must be put in place not only for victims, as has been widely and loudly proclaimed by recent inquiries, but also for those who are accused of sexual abuse and whose rights have frequently been sacrificed in the rush to acknowledge and compensate alleged victims; the accused also have moral and legal rights, notably the right to be held to be innocent until proven guilty. Moreover, the financial resources of the Catholic Church are not inconsequential; they are not something to be squandered on those making false allegations and, on the lawyers, and other non-victim beneficiaries of what some are suggesting has become, in the context of billions of dollars of redress and civil payouts by the Catholic Church, a de facto child sex abuse ‘industry’.

Church leaders must be responsible stewards of the Church’s finances. Thus any future redress scheme for the victims of child sexual abuse, if it is to be implemented, needs to function in accordance with reasonable standards of evidence, e.g. on the balance of probabilities, applied in the context of an adequate process of investigation and adjudication, and it should only make compensatory payments to those who have suffered significant adverse effects, e.g., a one-off instance of over the clothing touching (especially if the touch was not understood to be sexually motivated at the time, e.g. the offender touched the child on the knee for sexual gratification on a single instance) is unlikely to cause significant harm and, therefore, does not warrant compensation. Similarly, the statute of limitations should not be extended for minor crimes. Thus, such a redress scheme ought not to operate with the minimal standard of evidence required by the redress scheme in Australia established as a result of the Australian Inquiry; in this scheme no corroborating evidence is necessary for a payout and the alleged victim is nearly always taken at his or her word.

Furthermore, any future inquiry into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Italy should call for penalties to be in place for people who make false allegations of child sexual abuse. Moreover, the Catholic Church may need to become more active in its use of civil courts to extract compensation from those making false allegations; the reputation of the Catholic Church is fundamental to its moral and spiritual authority and, therefore, its leadership needs to ensure that neither the Church as an institution nor its innocent priests and other members suffer unjustified serious reputational loss (such as that resulting from falsely being labelled a paedophile). Further, the Church should undertake the necessary investigative work to determine whether an allegation is false or, at least, such preliminary investigative work as would trigger the police to undertake such an investigation. We note that there was no penalty built into the Australian Government Redress Scheme for false claims for six years. Only in September 2024 did the redress scheme announce on its webpage that people who made fraudulent claims would be prosecuted. Up until this time the redress scheme had paid out a total of $1.31 billion dollars (Ransley 2024), without a deterrent to those who would make false child sexual abuse allegations. Nor is the argument that there are few, if any, false allegations sustainable, at least in the context of a redress scheme with large payments and a low standard of evidence.

In short, while it goes without saying a victim of serious child sexual abuse in Italy is entitled to compensation, as is one in Australia and elsewhere, it does not follow from this that a redress scheme in Italy should replicate the ones established in Australia and elsewhere. Here it is not only a matter of the moral responsibility to victims and to the accused, but also of ensuring that the Catholic Church can continue to pursue its mission, including to finance its charitable work. Consider this quote from Joseph Lee (2022):

As far as the recent European inquiries are concerned, we see an alarming rise of sensationalistic ‘findings’; findings of large-scale, ongoing, child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Furthermore, as Armogathe et al. claim, it is likely that these sensationalistic ‘findings’ are all that members of the public are likely to be aware of and remember as a result of these inquiries. Armogathe et al., were talking about, in particular, the 330,000 estimated victims of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church that came from the French Inquiry. However, the same can be said for the 440,000 figure that is derived from the Spanish Inquiry. If Italy has an independent inquiry, the figure of 1,000,000 might enter the public mind – this will certainly be the case if the local victim’s lobby group has a strong influence on it. Importantly, we stress it is very difficult to overcome these grossly misleading figures. We have argued that the general population surveys in the French Inquiry and the Spanish Inquiry are deeply flawed. Furthermore, we have argued that the speculative figure of 1,000,000 victims that comes from Rete L’Abuso is fanciful. However, it would take a sustained and very public denial of these ‘findings’ to even come close to changing the minds of the average person who listens to the news.

Indeed, it could be said the Church, perhaps unsurprisingly, is failing adequately to address the erosion of its moral authority by virtue of failing to address the reputational damage arising from these various inquiries into child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. Based on some of the findings of some of these inquiries it is evident that, at times in the past, the Church prioritized its reputation over the rights and needs of victims/survivors of child sexual abuse, including their right to justice. However, faced with massive and ongoing reputational damage, as a result of these inquiries and, in particular, the often sensationalistic and misleading media coverage of the findings of these inquiries, the Church, no doubt shocked, ashamed and, perhaps, fearful of provoking an even greater backlash, seems to have lost the will to defend its reputation against disinformation and defamation (as opposed to damning facts and justified criticism).

For example, the Church has not responded adequately to the recommendation of the John Jay Report that it educate the public regarding the nature and scope of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, rather than allowing the general public to rely on, the often, inaccurate sensationalistic reports in the media. Thus, many members of the general public believe that contemporary cases of child sexual abuse are at the same rate as they were in the peak periods during the 1970s. However, in the USA and other places, the Church implemented significant safeguarding programs in the 1990s (which have been refined over the decades) that were evidently successful in reducing child sexual abuse. In the USA in 2018 0.07% of priests had contemporary allegations of child sexual abuse made against them, i.e., less than one in a thousand (Donohue 2020). Many members of the general public believe the number to be much higher. For instance, the media in Australia has put the figure at 7% or seven in a hundred2. What will the general public believe in Italy if an independent inquiry goes ahead?