UNDER A HEADLINE reading “Royal Commission: Vile extent of Catholic Church child sex abuse exposed in full” the Daily Telegraph stuck it to the Catholic Church in a story by Carleen Frost this week.
Frost gave a blow-by-blow of the statistics resulting from the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has identified 1880 alleged perpetrators, along with 4444 victims who have come forward to report an incident within the Church, between 1980 and 2015.
Lismore lead the state of NSW with 13.9 percent of its Catholic priests under the hellish cloud of having been “identified as alleged perpetrators” of offenses between 1950 and 2010.
The Telegraph quotes Francis Sullivan, Chief Executive of the Truth and Justice Council – which represented all Australian Catholic archdioceses and dioceses at the Royal Commission – saying, “As Catholics, we hang our heads in shame.”
Sullivan also remarked that the sexual abuse claims were “tragic” and “indefensible”, leaving Australian Catholics disgusted.
He said the abuse represented “a massive failure on the part of the Catholic Church in Australia.”
It is unknown at time of writing to what extent any citizens of Byron have been affected by NSW’s highest rate of diocesan sexual abuse allegedly carried out by members of the Lismore Catholic Diocese over the years.