A focus on the salvation rather than the criminality of sex abusers has done great harm. Listening to the horrific stories of abuse coming out of the royal
commission's investigations in Ballarat has led me, and many
other Australians, to ask how these atrocities could been ignored for so
long. One factor complicit in the silence about this abuse is the
historic relationship between Catholic understandings of sin and
psychology. One of the most galling aspects of the Ballarat
hearing is the repeated denials from Catholic authorities that they knew
what was happening to these children. This has been repeated in many of
the royal commission's investigations and in the Victorian
parliamentary inquiry that preceded it.
