A support group for victims of church-related sexual abuse is demanding an apology from Pope Benedict XVI when he visits Australia for World Youth Day in July. The call follows the Pope's attempt during a recent visit to the United States to heal the wounds caused by church sex scandals.
The Broken Rites group says the sexual abuse was worse in Australia than the US, and the victims of priests feel they are owed an apology by the Catholic church.
The group will write this week to the Vatican's representative in Australia to try to bring its demand to the Pope's attention.
The group also wants:
* a pontifical inquiry into the performance of Australia's bishops and heads of religious orders;
* a royal commission forcing the states, churches and charities to reveal their roles in the decades-long saga of abuse;
* a national redress scheme for victims with churches and charities being required to contribute;
* and a formal response by the Rudd government to the recommendations of the 2004 "Forgotten Australians" report into orphans, child migrants and children of the poor.
Broken Rites spokesman Dr Wayne Chamley said he was writing to the papal nuncio in Canberra this week to try to make sure the pontiff was aware of the thousands of church-related sexual abuse victims in Australia.
He said he was "optimistic", after the Pope's recent statement that the Catholic Church's long-running sexual scandal in the US had made him feel "deeply ashamed".
The Pope, on an official visit to America, pledged the church would do "everything it can" to heal the wounds caused by pedophile priests and ensure "events of this kind are no longer repeated".
The 81-year-old pontiff also took the unprecedented step of meeting with victims of predator priests.
"The Pope should be made aware that the scandal in Australia is many times worse than in America," said Dr Chamley.
"There have been five government inquiries into child sexual abuse in Australia since the 1990s, and the Catholic Church bobs up in it all time after time, page after page.
"An apology from Pope Benedict will indicate to victims and their families that at last the one person who can confront the church hierarchy in Australia now knows and understands what has gone on and has been allowed to go on.
"A significant number of Australians consider that the Pope owes them an apology for the abuse - sexual, physical, or psychological - which they experienced as children at the hands of professed and ordained members of the Catholic church."
Broken Rites is a non-denominational, voluntary organisation which says 90 per cent of the 3,500 victims who have contacted it since its formation in 1993 have come from Catholic backgrounds.
Broken Rites says Pope Benedict should be told that the abuse suffered by victims in Australia was allowed to go on for decades.
"Testimony in several criminal trials has established that in Australia, as in the United States, there were some bishops and heads of religious orders who knew what was going on and either did nothing or moved the offender to another location where further criminal activity could be carried out," said Dr Chamley.
Broken Rites says the Pope should be told of some of the worst cases of abuse encountered in Australia.
Organisers of the July 15-20 World Youth Day event in Sydney, or the Catholic Archdiocese in Sydney, were not immediately available for comment.
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