The Catholic Church has admitted liability for the molestation of 13 schoolgirls at a primary school on Queensland’s Darling Downs.

In a letter to the parents of the victims of paedophile teacher Gerard Vincent Byrnes, Toowoomba bishop William Morris admitted the church was liable for Byrnes’s actions and promised to cooperate fully with compensation claims.

A small step in the right direction on a very long journey to redress 1600 years of outrageous crimes against humanity by the Roman Catholic Church.

(Crimes that are continuing right now)

Byrnes is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to 46 child sex charges involving 13 girls under the age of 12 in 2007 and 2008.

The school’s principal, who cannot be named, was last year found not guilty of failing to properly report allegations made against the teacher, but the magistrate’s judgement heavily criticised the Catholic Education Office for not thoroughly investigating the claims.

“Criticised”? Why not charged & jailed for criminal negligence?

In a follow-up:

Child advocate applauds church child-rape admission

Bravehearts founder Hetty Johnston says it heralds a new era of openness and disclosure by church groups about child abuse [sic] in its ranks.

“The culture of silence and secrecy and shame doesn’t work any more if you’re an organisation or a family or an institution like the church and you want to protect your reputation, it’s not going to happen by hiding this away, by squirreling it away, by defending the offender instead of the child,” she said.

“Toowoomba is the ideal place for this to be a national first because it is the place that all of the disruption within the Anglican church happened which lead to the downfall of the then governor-general, Peter Hollingworth.”

“downfall”s are not anywhere near good enough. Why do these criminals, who support, encourage, finance, and conceal the most horrific crimes that humanity has ever known, ever get anything more severe than “retirement on a pension”?

They should be imprisoned for life on a charge of crimes against humanity. As a starting sentence.