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1. No where in the Four Corners program screened on Monday night did I hear any sympathy or empathy for victims or their families.
   Shame on the Church for lack of compassion for these children, later men, who were affected.
   What happened to them was a crime and subject to criminal procedings outside Church law.
   

   Posted By: Rosemary Keenan

2. This is a matter for the Australian Federal Police and an Australian Royal Commission.
   The Catholic Church has proven itself unwilling and incapable worldwide of policing its own offenders/criminals.

   Posted By: JJ

3. It seems that in the 1992 matter the Church followed the inexcusable and established practice of ignoring the other victims of the priest and failing to report this criminal predator of children to the state authorites.
   How can Christ's Church put its institutional interests above those of vulnerable children? In doing so, the Church denies the very teachings of Christ it is established to model.

   Posted By: Peter Johnstone

4. JJ is right. All matters of this nature should be dealt with by the police.
   This applies to abuses in Church as well as State institutions.
   Recently, in WA, the court found some men guilty of abusing many boys, a couple of decades ago, at a State school.
   There too, the authorities were aware but did nothing.
   By the end of this year, more twenty-five thousand Australian children would have been abused over the twelve months.
   Does this not warrant an ivestigation? Four Corners, perhaps?

   Posted By: M. Lyons

5. I agree with the comments of Rosemary and JJ, but we need to be careful that this doesn't extended into a general bashing of Catholicism and its fundamental beliefs and doctrines.
   I notice amongst my own relatives a desire to extrapolate guilt over all Catholic clergy.
   I am, for example, accused of supporting (believing in) a religion that 'encourages' pedophillia and I hear jibes like 'all Catholic priests are potential pedophlies'.
   The anti-Catholic bigots are using these scandals as a tool to persecute believers and discourage belief in God there is no doubt of that.
   We need to note that this attitude is prevalent even though we are morally obligated to bring justice for victims of these criminal priests.
   It is sad that the many good works of Catholic clergy around the world receives no coverage by a media that will always emphasize the bad and ignore the good.
   Furthermore pedophillia is rife (a moral cancer) in modern secular society in general but this seems to draw little investigative jounalism or condemnation. Why?

   Posted By: deric davidson

6. While we know that the media often seem to take delight in this subject, I feel that the Four Corners program was sensibly produced.
   I was also deeply touched by the families of the victims and what they suffer continuously.
   I also called to mind the suffering that my nephew had and is still going through because he was abused, sexually, by a priest who was a family friend.
   I weep for him and I weep for Our Lord,and for all those good priests who never get mentioned.
   I think it is up to us who have Faith to encourage those who talk of leaving.

   Posted By: M.M.

7. Deric: You have articulated the hypocrisy of our Church in this matter.
   The terrible impact of the sexual abuse scandal on the reputation of all priests and the faithful is due less to the fact that there have been some pedophile priests than to the Church's unethical response in putting its institutional interests above those of vulnerable children.
   Christ's Church has failed to practise the teachings of Christ in its own governance.
   This wrongdoing must be addressed and cannot be somehow offset by the many good works within Church.
   The essential good of the Church's mission has been undermined by the Church's own actions.
   Until the misgovernance of the Church is corrected, it will become even more difficult for the Church to be a true Christ-like influence on the world.

   Posted By: Peter Johnstone

8. I do not believe that Christ's Church has failed those who have been sexually abused by clergy.
   I believe the offending bishops have failed these victims and us, the Church.
   But the Church, ie all the baptised, would sincerely love to see justice done.
   Christ's Church is made up of many good people, many of them grandparents, and mums and dads, who also, have been sinned against by many in the hierarchy, although not as wickedly as the victims have been.
   In the words of the prophet Amos in today's first reading: let justice roll down like waters.
   Bring on a royal commission.
   If anyone covers up such evil, are they not guilt of mortal sin?
   By their very grave nature, a mortal sin cuts our relationship off from God (www.saintaquinas.com). When bishops are in mortal sin, are they cut off from God?

   Posted By: Francis

9. While respecting the views of 'good' Catholics who are used to taking comfort in the positive aspects of our religion, I feel we are too quiet and accepting when faced with negative incidents in our Church.
   As a member of ARC (Australian Reforming Catholics) I despair of positive changes being made in a church whose members avoid challenge and fear change.
   This latest abuse story should be the catalyst for an outcry from all parishes and a demand for transparent action from clergy.
   Are our energetic young leaving because our older, conservative members are too complacent, more anxious not to rock the boat?
   Will we survive 21st Century?

   Posted By: ADELE CUNNINGHAM

10. Abuser priests outside of Melbourne of any Catholic Diocese need to be dealt with by their respective Bishops or by Towards Healing.
    Abuser priests of the Archdiocese of Melbourne must be dealt with by The Melbourne Response.
    A Salesian religious who is also a priest, if he works in a Sydney Archdiocesan parish, and is suspected of sex abuse should be reported to Towards Healing.
    The same applies to religious women parish workers.
    The Melbourne Response hears complaints against priests, religious and lay people working in parishes of the Archdiocese of Melbourne.
    Priests who are also members of religious orders and parish-worker nuns-members of religious orders, if they work either as parish priests and/or as parish workers in any capacity, come under either Towards Healing or The Melbourne Response (for the Archdiocese of Melbourne only).
    If these parish-worker religious (priests or nuns) are suspected of abuse, report them!
    Towards Healing or The Melbourne Response must hear your case. They do have jurisdiction over Religious, if they work in parishes.
    That Salesian religious/priest worked in a parish, was found to be an abuser, was reported and the case must be heard.
    

    Posted By: Robin Henderson

11. The priests should be dealt with by the law like anyone else who abuses a child. Statute of limitations is way to short on child abuse cases and has allowed these things to slip away too many times already.

    Posted By: Marion

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