Child sexual abuse campaigner Damian De Marco has urged Pope Francis to release cardinals from an oath that may restrict them from speaking out about child sexual abuse.
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In an open letter to the pontiff, the 2015 ACT Local Hero and Bravehearts ambassador said the oath all new cardinals must swear, which prohibits them from disclosing information which could damage the Roman Catholic Church, is "inappropriate" due to the church's history of concealing child sexual abuse.
"In Australia, the Catholic Church now has 749,000 children in its care and each of those children are entrusted to a cardinal who will promise to conceal any information that could harm the church," Mr De Marco said.
"They really should be standing up and saying 'I promise I will protect these children' rather than saying we 'will protect the church'."
Mr De Marco said despite ratifying the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1984, church officials have regularly imposed a "code of silence" on cases of child sexual abuse and placed the reputation of the institution ahead of the protection of children.
He believes the oath poses a problem when cardinals are called to account, or to speak at The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – during which Mr De Marco waved his anonymity as a victim to testify.
"I think he himself [the Pope] is in a challenging position because it's a very deeply entrenched culture within the Catholic church. Ultimately I've addressed it to him because he's the only one that appears to have the power to change it," Mr De Marco said.
Mr De Marco has lobbied both the church and the state governments for mandatory reporting laws about child sexual abuse.
He has also worked with the church's Truth Justice Healing Council to examine the institution's response to child sexual abuse cases.
