The Australian Catholic Church has released "grim" data revealing 7 per cent of priests, working between 1950 and 2009, have been accused of child sex crimes.

The worst-offending institutions, by proportion of their religious staff, have been shown to be the orders of brothers, who often run schools and homes for the most vulnerable of children.

This is the most substantial dataset released to date about the extent of child sex abuse within the Australian Catholic Church, and was done with cooperation from them as part of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The church surveyed 10 religious institutes and 75 church authorities to uncover the abuse data on priests, non-ordained brothers and sisters, and other church personnel who were employed between 1950 and 2009.

4,444 alleged cases recorded

Counsel Gail Furness, SC, said 4,444 alleged child sex abuse incidents were recorded in the survey.

Ninety per cent of the victims were boys, with their average age at time of abuse being 11-and-a-half years old.

Girls were only 10-and-a-half years old on average when they were abused.

7pc of Australian Catholic priests accused

Seven per cent of priests ministering in the 60-year period have been accused of child sex offences.

This is an even starker figure to similar research carried out in the US which found that from 1950 through June 2015, 5.6 per cent of the 116,153 priests who worked have been accused of child sexual abuse.

This map shows the weighted average percentage of accused-perpetrator priests over 60 years. Some dioceses are not included in the map, or the data provided.

Worst dioceses in Australia

Archdiocese/diocese State Weighted average of priests that were accused perpetrators Diocese of Sale

VIC 15.1% Diocese of Sandhurst

VIC 14.7% Diocese of Port Pirie

SA 14.1% Diocese of Lismore

NSW 13.9% Diocese of Wollongong

NSW 11.7%

Worst Catholic religious institutes in Australia

The Benedictine Community of New Norcia is about two hours north-east of Perth in the Wheatbelt of Western Australia, and holds a monastery that was founded in 1847.

It is one of the oldest monasteries in Australia, and has the worst average of child sex abuse complaints against its priests and personnel.

Institute Weighted average of priests that were accused perpetrators Benedictine Community of New Norcia 21.5% Salesians of Don Bosco 17.2% Marist Fathers - Society of Mary 13.9% Pallottines - Society of the Catholic Apostolate 13.7% Vincentians - The Congregation of the Mission 8.0%

Catholic monasteries and orders were the worst offenders

Alarming statistics were found within the non-ordained ranks of brothers scattered throughout Australia who often ran, and still run, schools and orphanages.

Overall, there were 1,880 alleged perpetrators identified:

597 (32 per cent) were non-ordained religious brothers

597 (32 per cent) were non-ordained religious brothers 572 (30 per cent) were priests

572 (30 per cent) were priests 543 (29 per cent) were lay people

543 (29 per cent) were lay people 96 (5 per cent) were non-ordained religious sisters

96 (5 per cent) were non-ordained religious sisters 72 (4 per cent) of known alleged perpetrators, their religious status was not known.

The worst five brotherhoods (by percentage)

Non-ordained religious order Weighted percentage of alleged perpetrators 1950-2009 Total members of the order Areas where the orders have faced allegations

Brothers of St John of God 40.4% 112 VIC (Lilydale and Cheltenham orphanages), NSW (Kendall Grange Morisset) and New Zealand (Marylands School). Marist Brothers 20.4% 1,055 NSW (St Carthage's Parish Primary School Lismore, St Thomas More Primary School Campbelltown, Marist Bros Primary School Eastwood, Marist Sacred Hearts Mosman), QLD (St Augustine's Marist Brothers' College in Cairns), ACT (Marist College, Canberra) Christian Brothers 22.0% 1,610 VIC (St Patrick's College — St Alipius Primary School Ballarat, St Vincent's Boys Orphanage in South Melbourne, Chanel College and St Augustine's Boys Home, Geelong), WA (Boys homes in Bindoon, Castledare, Clontarf, Tardun) Salesians of Don Bosco 21.9% 247 VIC (St Josephs College Ferntree Gully, Rupertswood College Sunbury, Salesian College at Chadstone), NSW (Boys Town Sydney, St John Bosco College in Engadine), SA (Salesian College, Adelaide), WA (St Mark's College, Port Pirie) De La Salle Brothers 13.8% 492 QLD (Boys Town Brisbane, De La Salle College at Scarborough ), NSW (De La Salle College Ashfield), VIC (De La Salle College Malvern)

The worrying figures from the 2000s

In the full report there are datasets that appear to show there is very little abuse happening in the last decade of survey — the 2000s.

However, in her opening address, Ms Furness revealed some statics about victims which show how to take those statistics with a grain of salt.

Ms Furness said the average time it took between a victim being abused and reporting it, or seeking redress, is 33 years — a very long time and an explanation for low figures in the 2000s.

There is one dataset that can show us whether or not accused priests and brothers were pushed out of the diocese or institution, and that is a much more worrying picture and reveals how ineffective victims' claims about child sex abuse may have been.

This chart shows the percentage of priests or church personnel who were working in these areas or orders even when claims had been made against them.

The chosen four below all had a percentage greater than 10 per cent in the final decade reported.

Institutions with the fewest abuse claims

Ms Furness noted some institutions that had the lowest reports of abusers in their houses of worship.

Notably, the Sisters of Mercy Brisbane and the order founded by Saint Mary MacKillop, Australia's only saint, had the lowest instances of reported abuse.

The Diocese of Adelaide had the lowest reported figures of a Catholic diocese.

Catholic institution Weighted percentage of alleged perpetrators 1950-2009 Total members of the order Areas where the orders have faced allegations Sisters of Mercy Brisbane 0.3% 955 Unknown Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart (Founded by Saint Mary MacKillop) 0.6% 3,122 Unknown Dominican Friars 2.1% 155 QLD (St Martin de Porres girls' primary school), SA (Blackfriars Priory School, Saint Lawrence's parish) Diocese of Adelaide 2.4% 222 Unknown

Editor's note February 8, 2017: This story was first published associating the Sisters of Mercy Brisbane with allegations at the Neerkol Orphanage. We have deleted this reference as the Rockhampton orphanage was associated with the larger Sisters of Mercy, not the Brisbane order, and closed in 1978.

What the data doesn't tell us

Despite the data covering members of church institutions between 1950 and 2009, the claims data it was matched with only covers claims made between January 1, 1980 and February 28, 2015, so claims reported before then are not included.

It only shows where victims sought redress, like compensation, or where the church investigated and substantiated the claim — it does not include complaints made that did not have any follow-up or investigation.

The data reports how many Catholic personnel have been reported, but it does not go into detail how prolific the accused paedophiles were and this presents a number of problems.

For example, the Maitland-Newcastle diocese is not on the commission's top list of offenders, however Bishop Bill Wright says the region had three or four very prolific offenders.

"If you presented the figures a different way — how many victims, survivors of abuse are there — that would look a bit different," he said.

"But we have a very considerable number of people who have been abused, but many of them by the same three or four people."

The report also leaves out more details on the victims and if they suffered abuse by multiple church personnel.

The prevalence of alleged abusers is not calculated for all Catholic Church authorities who were surveyed, another important piece of data missing from the report.

The survey sought responses from 75 authorities but only shows results for 26 of those authorities. Any authority with fewer than 20 claims of abuse has been left out.

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