"Let us think of those children who are victims of the industry of pornography and every other appalling form of abuse, and thus are traumatised in the depths of their soul." – Pope Benedict, Xmas, 2008.

The Australian Sex Party has called on the Rudd government to convene a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in religious institutions as a priority during its first sitting of federal Parliament in 2009. This follows Pope Benedict’s midnight mass Xmas homily in which he accused the ‘pornography’ industry of abusing children.

Party convenor, Fiona Patten said that the Pope’s call completely ignored the widespread abuse of children in Catholic churches and was a clear and transparent attempt to shift responsibility for the epidemic to an innocent third party. “The Pope should look to clean up his own backyard “, Ms Patten said. “Fifteen priests were charged with sexually assaulting young children in Australia during 2008 – all of them Catholic – and I believe that this is just the tip of the iceberg.” She said that another four Catholic priests were before the courts or under investigation with up to 100 individuals around the nation waiting for their day in court. 2008 was also the year that the Roman Catholic church finalised payments of $60million to people who had been abused in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

By 2000, 450 church clergy had been dealt with by the courts for child sex abuse and since then the rate remained at approximately 20 per year. “If this rate of proven child sex abuse was continuing to happen in any other profession, governments would have held a formal enquiry ages ago”, she said. “Because of the political hold that the church has on the Cabinet and the Shadow Cabinet, nothing is being done to investigate why churches are continuing to breed record numbers of paedophiles. Now, as Bravehearts, ASACP and many other child protection groups are saying, only a Royal Commission can deal with the issue honestly and openly”.

Ms Patten said that the church’s sexual problems were reflected in its attitudes to the sex industry. “Even at a local level, the Catholic church still routinely opposes development applications for adult sex shops on the ridiculous grounds that they will lead to an increase in child abuse”, she said. “There has still never been a single conviction for a child sex assault from anyone employed in the sex industry which means we should be appealing development applications for churches.”

Australia’s adult retail industry employs approximately the same number of people as the religion industry – 20,000.

Fiona Patten

Australian Sex Party: PO Box 181, Deakin West, ACT, 2600. Ph 02 6285 247