Fresh allegations detailing abuse of children by clergy highlight the need for an ecumenical approach to caring for victims. Recently a 67-year-old Catholic priest was sentenced to almost 20 years in prison for sexual assaults on young boys between 1968 and 1986.
Then, the Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, apologised for crimes of sexual abuse by clergy, acknowledging the church's shame and failures, an apology endorsed by Sydney's Archbishop George Pell.
Now there are reports that another Catholic priest, Father Finian Egan, is being investigated after new claims by two sisters of sexual abuse.
Child sex abuse has occurred in other churches as well.
Last year Professor Patrick Parkinson and I presented a report that the Anglican Church had commissioned to identify the scope of the problem, based on past complaints, and to bring the problem into the open to strengthen the church's child protection protocols.
That study found a higher incidence of male victims, a finding similar to that of the Catholic Church and different from that in the wider community, where sexual abuse of girls is more common.
We suggested that this high incidence in boys may be because access to boys by offenders is easier in religious organisations.
This may also explain the higher incidence of boys abused in the Catholic Church.
Why are we hearing about these revelations of child sex abuse in churches? Awareness of child sex abuse is relatively recent. Only in the late 1970s did child sex abuse start being discussed seriously by professionals.
This led to the first tentative steps in preventing and dealing with it. Before that, child sex abuse was a taboo subject.
An early reaction to this awareness was that it was just a product of the child's fertile, fanciful imagination.
It is true that sometimes false allegations of sex abuse are made by children. But research shows that this occurs in less than 2 per cent of cases. It is not children who lie about sexual abuse — it is adults.
Another early assumption was that offenders must be homosexual. But research has shown that homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to be child sex abusers.
We now know that child sex abuse is common. Australian government figures put the prevalence at 7 per cent to 12 per cent for penetrative abuse of females and 4 per cent to 8 per cent for penetrative abuse of males, with higher rates for non-penetrative abuse in both sexes.
With child sex abuse being so prevalent, it follows that in any large organisation where there is access to children, such as schools, youth clubs, sporting clubs, as well as religious organisations, there will be abusers.
Most groups working with young people have developed protocols to screen workers, educate staff and give complainants independent advice. They have also realised that child sexual abuse is a criminal offence that needs to be dealt with by the police.
Allegations of child sex abuse must be dealt with by a combination of law enforcement and access to skilled professionals experienced in this area. It is not an area for amateurs. But while the criminal justice system is investigating and dealing with the allegation, the pastoral care of the victim must not be neglected.
Although churches should never be involved in hiding, transferring or overlooking possible offenders in any way, they do have a major role in the pastoral care of victims.
Many adults who were sexually abused as children still need, as well as an apology, help to cope with myriad feelings that remain — feelings of rejection, guilt and worthlessness because the adult who abused them saw them not as valuable children in their own right, but as mere objects of sexual gratification.
Many mainstream churches now have safe ministry protocols to prevent sexual abuse of children, codes of conduct for lay and ministry staff and professional standards units to deal with complaints, often using independent experts.
These are welcome moves that have arisen as a result of awareness, as well as an acceptance by churches that, like other organisations, they are not immune.
But the churches could all go further. Ongoing support for victims is an important part of the healing process.
More could be done in this area.
Why don't the churches come together to share preventive strategies and approaches to pastoral care?
Attempts at ecumenism are often thwarted by differences in theology, but in caring for the victims of sexual abuse there should be no differences.
It is time to consider a joint approach.
SIC: NTAUS