A recent hearing into cases of child abuse by clergy in Australia noted
that priests imported to the country from overseas are an emerging
danger.Victims organisation Broken Rites told the state inquiry into the churches' handling of sex abuse on Nov. 9 that it was aware of at least seven cases in which imported priests had sexually abused people, including one where the priest abused five women, four of them members of his own family.
The Australian Catholic Church has not released the number of clerics imported mostly from India, Nigeria and the Philippines to ease the catastrophic decline in parish priests.
A study last year estimated that these priests made up 20 per cent of Australia's total of 1500 priests.
Researcher Wayne Chamley told the inquiry that Church lawyers tried to ''king hit'' victims as hard as possible to demoralise them in negotiations for compensation.
He said the church's internal system for investigating abuse was a charade that had no legal standing.
Letting the church investigate itself was like ''leaving Dracula in charge of the blood bank,'' he added.
Chamley compared the life of a paedophile priest who was not exposed despite church payouts with that of his victims.
The priest would be housed, given medical care, a stipend, and the respect of his family and parishioners, who did not know of his predation.
Of the victims, 91 per cent had mental health problems.
''They live in public housing, wait in queues at emergency departments in public hospitals for days. Their diets are shocking … and they fear as they get older - and they are now in their 60s - some will develop Alzheimer's and dementia,'' Chamley added.