The Vatican, child sex crimes and how Australia is the great facilitator

AUSTRALIA should renounce the Vatican’s diplomatic status, close its embassy to the Holy See and make senior Catholic clergy accountable to the Australian criminal justice system, say supporters of a tougher response to the church after it refused to comply with requests from the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

Hunter-based One Nation Senator Brian Burston is planning a private member’s bill to withdraw diplomatic recognition granted the Vatican in 1973, after public controversy about Cardinal George Pell’s failure to return to Australia to give evidence at the royal commission, and the Vatican’s refusal to provide the commission with files of Australian child sex offender priests held by the Holy See.

“It’s disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful. They’re hiding behind the diplomatic status but it’s typical of how the church acts,” Mr Burston said.

A call by NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge – who campaigned for the royal commission – to renounce the Vatican’s diplomatic recognition was backed by human rights lawyer and church critic Geoffrey Robertson, QC, who said “if we have any self-respect we should sever our ties with it” …

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Joanne McCarthy, Newcastle Herald