The author of this article, Scott Prasser, is disclosed by this statement :
"Executive Director, Public Policy Institute at Australian Catholic University

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
Scott Prasser does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations."

This seems to be a blatant lie. The RCC certainly will benefit from Scott's plea to "avoid a Royal Commission" into the many crimes committed by the RCC, and its employees.

Yet another lie. Scott certainly DOES receive benefit from the RCC, in the form of a senior annual salary from that church.

The RCC apparatus has been lying for so long now, they can't even recognise them any more.

Whatever the facts of that disclosure, his article also would seem to clearly add another fact about Scott :
"Here is yet another RCC bureaucrat, Scott Prasser, trying to weasel this Criminal Church - yet again - FREE OF FACING DUE ACCOUNT FOR ITS CRIMINAL ACTIONS."

Perhaps this Facebook comment is appropriate?
"The Catholic Church is a wealthy, organised and powerful international child sex ring that has been running for 2000 years."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ1_aQz6IuU

There can be no mercy or forgiveness for what this horrendous organisation has done.
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Will the Royal Commission allow for more discussion on two important premises?

1. That the Catholic Church protects its priests because of the cost involved in producing them.
2. The disinclination of men to take on the life style unless they are paedophiles.

Royal Commissions worry governments, because Royal Commissions by their very nature aren't really all that controllable, and they aren't limited to the stuff that's going to upset one side of parliament more than the other. So yeah, a federal Royal Commission into institutionalised paedophilia and child sex abuse is going to be a powerful thing to direct at a lot of long-buried crimes and institutional structures, and yes, I should expect to see a lot of people heading for the shredders over the next few days (watch closely, and buy shares in secret-level waste disposal...).

However, as Bruce Tabor points out, a lot of this is going to involve institutions which operate at state levels (things like the various state departments involved in child protection, the various police forces, and so on), things which our constitution explicitly denies the federal government the power to do anything about. So if a legislative agenda or a list of criminal prosecution targets do come out of this (and let's face it, these are the main outputs of royal commissions) all the legwork will need to be done at a state level. Given the current range of state governments, and their current priorities, I'd expect to see the prosecutions proceed with all speed in possibly NSW (where there's a lot of heat and light being raised on the issue at present) and Tasmania (which is showing a commendable record with regards to issues of human rights), get put onto the "to do soon" list in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria (all of which will be concerned about the whole issue, but not concerned enough to fund it at the expense of everything else that needs funding), and be dropped at the bottom of the pile by the government of Queensland (who will be effectively discarding any and all federal suggestions as close to a point of policy over the next few years).

So, what can we expect to get out of this royal commission? Well, we can expect a lot of muck to be raked from the bottom of the pond. We can expect a lot of (previously spotless, or at worst mildly tarnished) reputations to be pulled out and destroyed. We can expect the skeletons in various closets to be pulled out and given an airing. We can certainly expect the Catholic church to be pushing very hard for secular institutions (such as school boarding accommodation) to be examined very strongly indeed.

What we can't expect: a Royal Commission here in Australia will not change the practices of the Catholic Church as dictated by the College of Cardinals and the Pope in Rome. The celibacy of the clergy (which to my mind is the key doctrinal point which is at the heart of all of this) is something which got brought into the church during about the twelfth century, and has been retained ever since. It's going to need more than one Royal Commission in one small-ish country which isn't even majority Catholic to alter that.

Before I fully take in what Scott Prasser has written, I'd like to say without hesitation, most clergy enter religious life with the highest of intention, a vocation usually fostered at the knee of their mothers.
It's what and who contaminates them during their formation many seminarians caught in a web, with more than one public admission by ordained alienated for whatever reason, clergy.
On the surface, mandatory celibacy is another issue, with the expectation of the laity Not the same as the hierarchy, providing it doesn't become public knowledge, also on record.
Religious Order clergy, as in Franciscans, have their Third Orders, made up of mainly women and amply succored financially, corporally and physically on the fringes with husbands deprived of affection under the guise of "spirituality".
The other side of their coin when a decent friar through valid process, seeks leave and rescript of vows, he's denied due to the "element of scandal" irrespective if he has brought a child into the world or not.
Unfortunately these issues go under the the radar of any Royal Commission or Inquiry.

This is not to comment on the article per se. However, it is a germane comment about the people in politics, the police, and the Church leading to the royal commission. And, how such an inquiry has been ludicrously overdue.

At the top of the Catholic Church's friends in the Coalition there is Tony Abbott-Jesuit trained; Kevin Andrews-Jesuit trained; and numbers amongst its luminaries…Mathias Corman; Scott Morrison; Eric Abetz; Sophie Mirabella; Guy Burnett; Peter Ryan (NCP) VIC, and deputy Premier; David Clarke (If still in Liberal Party is known-with a degree of horror as Ratzinger’s Right; Kelly O’Dwyer; Barnaby Joyce (NCP); George Brandis, Nick Minchin (Retired but interested in returning); Andrew Robb; Christopher Pyne; Don Farrell; John (the Blacksmith) Madigan DLP; Bill Shorten; Malcolm Turnbull; Geoff Wilson.

This is not to suggest all these people are responsible for the successful stone-walling of enquiries into the Catholic Church-just most of them. With the exception of Bill Shorten I haven’t included Labor Party hard-line Catholics, because I haven’t got around to them yet.

Police at all levels have been loaded with Catholics. Linked together politicians and police have been a deadly antidote against transparency.

Last night, on Lateline, Father Frank Brennan , of the Catholic University, was interviewed. He sounded so responsible and almost reasonable, until one realises the same man has vowed to go to gaol rather than allowing anyone to report the findings of a perpetrator’s confessional. Meanwhile in Victoria the Premier, Ted Baillieu immediately capitulated to the Catholic Church declaring the confessional be exempt from mandatory reporting. (This refers to the enquiry into paedophilia in the Catholic Church being carried out in Victoria.)

George Pell, Cardinal….what a performance, until finally the loss of face he was enduring was too great to ignore. He was forced to acquiesce to the royal commission. The only comfort to be taken over the whole evil scenario is that Pell’s campaign to become the next Pope will probably hit a brick wall. Not because of any dereliction towards children. Rather, it will fail because the whole thing blew up on his watch.

Colin Kline pointed to a very salient issue here.....there is most definately a conflict of interest ,with the author being employed by the Catholic University....so how should we view this as an independent article,?

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Melbourne Age, 14 Nov 2012, (p.4) :

"Former Royal Commissioner warns of potential heartache"

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1084742/former-royal-commissioner-warns-of-potential-heartache/?cs=12
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Are readers aware of the Royal Commission into NSW Police in 1997?

Its results were published in volumes entitled: Corruption, Reform and Paedophilia... See http://bit.ly/WQnqGn

In the UK, we are still hoping that the Government will follow suit!...

Father Abbott's effort to water down the royal commission into decades of child abuse in the Catholic Church is not surprising since he is a defender of that institution. Just sickening.