The Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn has refused to throw his support behind legislation allowing child sex abuse victims to more easily sue the church.
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Catholic archbishop Christopher Prowse said it was up to the ACT government to create loopholes in the ACT around the "Ellis defence" after they signalled last week it would be considered.
The Ellis defence is named after John Ellis, who was abused as an altar boy in the 1970s. Mr Ellis tried to sue the Catholic church in 2007, only for the church to argue it didn't legally exist, so couldn't be sued to compensate victims of child sex abuse by Catholic clergy.
Advocates have called for the loopholes to be legislated, with one doubtful the ACT government would do it.
Mr Prowse's counterpart in Melbourne - Archbishop Denis Hart - welcomed the recent similar moves by Victorian parliament to legislate for loopholes around the Ellis defence.
Mr Prowse said such laws were a matter for the ACT government to consider and said the Archdiocese of Canberra and Goulburn had always proffered a proper defendant when responding to any claims.
"I remain committed to responding to the survivors of child sex abuse in a just and pastoral way," Mr Prowse said.
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The ACT attorney-general Gordon Ramsay has said the government had already made changes to civil law to remove a statute of limitations for historic sex abuse, as well as legislating laws against grooming behaviour.
"We will consider this [Victorian] legislation and the recently introduced Western Australian Civil Liability Legislation Amendment (Child Sexual Abuse Actions) Bill 2017 for applications in the ACT as part of our work to implement the recommendations of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse," Mr Ramsay said.
"The ACT government is committed to ensuring that survivors of child sexual abuse are able to seek real, meaningful redress and compensation."
Advocate and former Marist College Canberra student Mike Desmond said the laws were needed in the ACT but the current government wouldn't legislate them.
"It's not one of their priorities. They're too worried about high rises and trams to worry about historic cases of child abuse," Mr Desmond said.
"This government doesn't seem to care about people. There are people out there who continue to hurt, continue to kill themselves."
"You can't have these entities looking after children who don't have some sort of legal basis underpinning their operation."
Jason Parkinson of Porters Lawyers said the laws were urgently needed in Canberra.
"This would be another step in assisting the victims and taking away spurious protections the church has relied on in the past," Mr Parkinson said.
Both Mr Desmond and Mr Parkinson pointed to when Marist College Canberra tried to defer responsibility for child sex abuse by arguing they didn't know who owned the schools.
"The church has been hiding behind this opaqueness for years," Mr Parkinson said.
"They don't mind all of these entities not paying any tax but when it comes time to pay damages, suddenly they don't know who they are and if they can be sued."
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