Australia Catholic Church faces six decades of child abuse allegations

By James Regan SYDNEY (Reuters) - Seven percent of Catholic priests working in Australia between 1950 and 2010 were accused of child sex crimes but few were pursued, Church data showed on Monday, as hearings began over allegations dating back decades. Last year, Australia's most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, said the Church had made "enormous mistakes" and "catastrophic" choices by refusing to believe abused children, shuffling abusive priests from parish to parish and over-relying on counseling of priests to solve the problem. Monday's data, seen as the most substantial to detail the extent of child sex abuse in the Church, were compiled with the Catholic hierarchy's cooperation by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.