Catholic Church Insurance, Ltd, owned by the Australian Diocese, assembled thousands of pages of dossiers on rapes committed by paedophile priests in the 1990s when survivors of the assaults started coming forward with compensation claims.
The full extent of the files has become known now that Australia is embroiled in a Royal Commission that some of the Church’s most responsible, senior clerisy have undermined by fleeing to Vatican City and refusing to testify in person.
The survivors and their families want the Church to order its insurer to make its files public.
Such information is also of extraordinary value to victims seeking to find out what the church knew about their alleged abuse and subsequent liability, as well as for criminal investigations into the concealment of crimes.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse last week confirmed it has received the files, but declined to comment further about requests to make the information public.A spokeswoman for the Catholic Church referred all queries on the matter to the insurance company, while a spokesman for CCI said the insurer declined to comment.
Secret archive of paedophile crime kept by Catholic Church’s insurers
[Rory Callahan/The Age]