An Australian bishop has revealed that he himself was a victim of sexual abuse.Bishop Vincent Long Van Nguyen of Parramatta told a royal investigating committee that he was abused by a cleric when he first arrived in Australia as a refugee from Vietnam.
“That had a powerful impact on me,” he said. The bishop said that he was an adult when the abuse occurred, but still considered himself a victim, and found it easy to sympathize with other abuse victims.
Bishop Long told the royal commission that he believes the abuse problem has been aggravated by a hierarchical system that can “breed clerical superiority and elitism.”
He said that priests are protected by sympathetic bishops, and bishops are protected if they are backed by the Pope.
“There’s no accountability that reaches downwards or outwards,” he said, “and that’s the critical problem.”