PM's inquiry will bite many

The Catholic Church is inevitably the main target of the inquiry into sexual abuse of children. It pretty much deserves what it has had so far, and what it will get, but my bet is that it will emerge from the long inquisition ahead in far better shape than some of the other institutions under scrutiny, including government itself. This inquiry could be a big own goal.

Julia Gillard has yet to settle the terms of reference for the commission, but she has already made it clear that it will extend beyond the Catholic Church to other religious and civic bodies, and possibly schools, which have been given the charge of children. That was the condition on which Tony Abbott, and to an extent Catholic prelates, agreed to manifest a faint enthusiasm for the project.

The inquiry could take ages, every now and again sending a great fizz of sparks across the political horizon. Some will come from accounts of abuse - in orphanages, schools and other children's institutions. Some will be from amazement at some of those who engaged in abuse, and at their brazenness.

There will be evidence that some of the religious and civil superiors of the predators resisted evidence of abuse that was before their eyes, and that, when they could resist no longer, acted not so much to reach out to the victims but to cover up, shield their institutions from bad publicity and lawsuits, and shuffle malefactors around, rather than to report them for punishment.

It will also be found that there has been obstruction of investigators and removal of evidence, and exercise of bluff. It will be found that there were bishops, and archbishops and even cardinals who were not sufficiently proactive in attacking an epidemic of abuse, and who, even now are combative, defensive and waspish to any criticism, particularly anything suggesting they did too little, and, often too late, to a great crisis that was partly of their own making.

We know all of this because it is all already on the record. In Australia, from any number of criminal cases before the courts, from internal and external inquiries and reports on the width, depth and breadth of the problem, and from the work of any number of advocacy bodies and lawyers trawling, with deeply perturbed looks on their faces, for class actions.

There have also been more intensive investigations about the extent of the scourge of clerical sexual abuse in the United States, and in institutions in Ireland. The idea that the epidemic was a peculiar ''Western'' or anglophone problem in the church is manifest nonsense, there are grounds for believing that the scale and basis of the American and Irish problems - the most closely investigated - are similar to Australia's, right down to the arrogance, inertia, and culpable blindness of many of the bishops (and nuncios).

One can safely predict that it will be found that perhaps 4000 children were abused by Catholic religious over the past 70 years. Believable charges have been made against at least 500 clerics, and perhaps 2000 more (many now dead) are under some suspicion. A few predators - probably fewer than 100 - seem to be responsible for about 80 per cent of the known cases; and often, their predation was facilitated by the failure of bishops to respond properly to allegations.

It will be found that there was always a background level of some sexual abuse - at a rate of about 10 per cent of the levels it seemed to reach in the 1960s, at the height of what seemed an epidemic that lasted until the 1980s, when rates seemed to decline, in part because bishops were finally acting. That decline has not been so obvious to the public because it is common in such matters for victims not to emerge for 20, 30 or even 50 years from when abuse occurred. The typical case these days is from the 1980s, but there are still cases emerging from the 1950s and 1960s.

The typical perpetrator is a priest or religious who, if alive, is more than 70. Contrary to the idea that epidemic is an artefact of loosened moral formation in the wake of the Vatican Council, the typical malefactor underwent religious training before 1965, and is of the same generation as the bishops whose stewardship has been so criticised. Yet it does appear that the dramatic change in sexual and social ideas that took root in the 1960s - symbolised perhaps by the pill, promiscuity, and acceptance of different lifestyles and sexualities - helped cause the epidemic. This was accentuated by the learned immaturities and sexual naiveties of the Catholic seminaries and novitiates of the times.

About a third of the victims will be prepubescent children - victims of paedophiles. About half of them will be pubescent and post-pubescent boys and girls under 16 - victims of ephebophiles. One is slightly more despicable. Others will be disabled or vulnerable young adults. Half of the victims will be of the same sex as the perpetrator, but the experts will think that this is less reflective of the basic sexuality than a matter of opportunity.

Just as we are gasping at the evil and depravity of the perpetrators, the suffering they have imposed on their victims, and the urge for severe punishment, we could end up showing just a smidgeon of compassion. There is a high chance that the predator was himself grossly abused at a young age, and that their psychic, social and sexual development has been much stunted, in many cases by the very training which eventually gave them access to, and power over, their victims. This will not excuse him, but create some context. The church now recognises this, but it cannot unmake some of the damaged people.

It will also be discovered that there is no test - psychological or otherwise - that can readily show which personality is more likely to offend or to have offended. Priests who have offended cannot be readily separated by testing from their cohort who have not.

There have been about 80,000 Catholic religious over the period in question. There are no suspicions held out against the overwhelming majority. Many of those still in orders, or still alive, (perhaps 20,000 of that 80,000) are smeared by constant innuendo against religious. The 95 per cent are admirable people who have dedicated their lives to the service of others and deserve more credit than they get. They are critical to an ultimate reconciliation.

In most institutions where abuse occurred, the staff are now laymen and women, not religious. Managers, originally slow to respond, are now especially proactive in seeking to prevent occasions in which abuse could occur. Abuse is a dirty little secret carried out in private. Procedures designed to prevent occasions where individuals are together, as well as the promotion of reporting cultures, are now the norm.

It could not take a 10-year inquiry to tell us all of this. Catholics apologetic about the epidemic have not been thoroughly convincing (mostly because the church's understanding of sexuality is still hopelessly confused). One feels certain that there are still stories to shock, and evil, possibly in high places, to be exposed. The church has been through a well deserved purgatory, but it is, I expect largely through it. So are most of the other big religions and bodies.

But some others, not yet even in the contemplation of the prime ministers and the premiers, have yet to face the fire, the scrutiny, or the recrimination, the church has. Smaller churches, sporting and cultural bodies, and social welfare institutions of the state, and the legal and welfare establishment supposed to be the guardians of the vulnerable, could find themselves at far greater risk. Perhaps there will even be politicians whose stewardship is found to be as woeful as that of the Catholic bishops.