SOME priests think pedophilia does not "break celibacy" and that sins can be confessed away, one of the nation's top child protection experts says.

Emeritus Professor Freda Briggs, who has just published a seminal text on child protection, says sexual abuse by a priest is “the most damaging of all" for children and that the Catholic Church is guilty of forgiving priests instead of punishing them.

Her comments come after Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a sweeping federal royal commission into institutional child sex abuse, which was sparked by revelations of abuse within the Catholic Church.

Asked whether Catholic celibacy was a possible contributor to child sex abuse, Prof Briggs told news.com.au celibacy was not the problem “for men who are sexually attracted to children" anyway.

“There has been an acceptance over the years that having sex with a boy is not breaking celibacy," she said.

“What priests told me was that the biggest crime was to have sex with a woman."

Prof Briggs, from the University of South Australia, started out as a policewoman and has now been working in the area of child abuse and child protection for 50 years.

She says confession, which plays an important role in the Catholic Church but is also practised in other Christian religions, made churches attractive to pedophiles.

“Churches are psychologically attractive to sex offenders because they can ask for forgiveness one day and offend again on another day," she said.

“There was one priest in Victoria who admitted when caught that he had confessed 200 times and nobody had reported him, because priests are not allowed to report anyone who confesses in a confessional."

Priests are not subject to mandatory reporting laws so they don't have to report child abusers who confess to them. Generally, a priest who receives such a confession is meant to convince the abuser to report themselves to authorities.

Across Australia people such as doctors, nurses and teachers, who work with children, have to report child abuse but no Australian state or territory has included priests in their mandatory reporting requirements.



Only South Australia specifically mentions ministers of religion, but they have an exemption for the confessional. The Northern Territory’s is the only state which extends its requirements to "any adult".

Cardinal George Pell, Archbishop of Sydney, says historically people in the Church did not realise that pedophilia was “an addiction".

“It wasn't just the Catholic Church that hoped (an abusive priest) would amend their conduct and give them a home somewhere else," he told The Weekend Australian.

“Back in those days, they were entitled to think of pedophilia as simply a sin that you would repent of. They didn't realise that in the worst cases it was an addiction, a raging addiction.''

Father Frank Brennan, a Jesuit priest and Professor of Law at the Australian Catholic University, told the ABC last night that in the past children were “sacrificed" for the interests of the church or particular clerics, and that “more work" was needed to understand why there was a disproportionately high number of child abusers among the Catholic clergy.

UniSA Associate Professor Dale Bagshaw, an adjunct professor in the School of Psychology, Social Work and Social Policy, says ultimately it's power that's the problem, and that pedophiles join the church because of its structure.

“It's power and trust, manipulation, grooming and abuse," she said.

“Friends in the Catholic Church tell me that a lot of pedophiles actually join the church to be in a position to abuse children … it gives them a powerful position.

“It's the patriarchal nature of the system. They don't have women priests, I think they really think they're a cut above, that they're beyond the state."

News.com.au asked the office of Archbishop Philip Wilson, President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, for a response. We were referred to what Adelaide's Father Philip Marshall told the ABC this morning:

"If somebody comes to confession and they're saying 'look I've done a terrible thing, I'm deeply sorry'… the priest is going to say 'good, if that's so you have to act ... you have to go to the police, you have to follow the processes'."