The Roman Catholic Church in the Australian state of Victoria has confirmed that more than 600 children have been sexually abused by its priests since the 1930s.
The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, described the figures as "horrific and shameful".
They were released in a submission to a state parliamentary inquiry into the handling of abuse cases.
Campaigners say the true number of abuse victims could be up to 10,000.
In its submission, the church said the 620 cases went back 80 years with the majority taking place between the 1960s and the 1980s.
It says it is still investigating a further 45 cases.
In a statement, Archbishop Hart said it was important to be open "about the horrific abuse that has occurred in Victoria and elsewhere".
"We look to this inquiry to assist the healing of those who have been abused, to examine the broad context of the church's response, especially over the last 16 years, and to make recommendations to enhance the care for victims and preventative measures that are now in place," the statement said.
Campaign groups say that many cases of abuse have gone unreported, and they believe the true number of victims is closer to 10,000 in Victoria alone.
Abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests has been a major issue in Australia recent years.
During a visit to Australia in July 2008, Pope Benedict XVI met some of the victims and made a public apology for the abuse.
"In a statement, Archbishop Hart said it was important to be open "about the horrific abuse that has occurred in Victoria and elsewhere"."
It took a parliamentary enquiry to get the information out of you lot, you twat.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
So does that mean 'more than 1200' on both of these roads?
yrs
Major Major
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
Who sexually assaults children, and how common is it [In AU]?
Despite the widespread view that children are sexually assaulted mainly by strangers, the reality is that most sexual assault is perpetrated by someone who is known to the child, such as a family member, family friend, or person with whom the child comes into contact (Richardson and Bromfield 2005).
Information on prevalence of childhood sexual assault and the relationship of the perpetrator to the child comes largely from national population surveys, and of these the Australian component of the International Violence Against Women Survey, known as IVAWS (Mouzos and Makkai 2004), is the most recent and entails the largest survey population. It was conducted across Australia between December 2002 and June 2003, on a total of 6,677 women aged between 18 and 69 years. Eighteen per cent of women surveyed had experienced sexual violence before the age of 16 years (2 per cent by a parent and 16 per cent by someone other than a parent). The overwhelming majority of those abused by a parent were abused by fathers (only two women in the sample had been sexually abused by their mothers). Of those abused by someone other than a parent, 20 per cent of the perpetrators were friends or friends of the family, 17 per cent were acquaintances or neighbours, 13 per cent were strangers, 13 per cent were 'someone else known'. Uncles, brothers, grandfathers, cousins, other relatives and other children/ students comprised less than 10 per cent of perpetrators each.
