I daresay in practice there's a great deal of variation, but are there any definite guidelines as to what action a priest should take if a crime is 'confessed' to them? I didn't have a Catholic upbringing, so I don't know, but how likely is an abuser to 'confess' what he or she has done? I've heard many times of people inventing sins in confession just to keep the priest happy; I can't help wondering what the overall level of honesty really is.

I can't see much point in arguing over statistics - one can make statistics say virtually anything. The fact is that anything greater than zero percent child abuse is unacceptable, and it doesn't matter whether it's priests, nuns, brothers or the Pope who's doing it, it's the fact that it's going on in Catholic institutions which have a duty of care.

There have undoubtedly been cover-ups, and they have been committed either for the benefit of the church ('not rocking the boat') or for the benefit of the offender/s. Either way it's to the detriment of the child and society in general. Abused children often go on to be abusers, that's been a well understood phenomenon for years. They, however, will not be the ones who are coming forward. We are only seeing the tip of the iceberg, and anything less than 'zero tolerance' is perpetuating the problem.