Doctor Thomas Doyle, a United States canon lawyer and expert in areas of sexual abuse by clergy gave evidence at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney on Tuesday.

The Dominican priest accused the Catholic Church of committing the “soul murder” of abuse victims, with some survivors never recovering from the trauma. 

“Sometimes those murdered souls stay dead,” Dr Doyle told the inquiry.

“One of the massive holes in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to this issue still today, is a failure to completely comprehend the depth of the spiritual damage that is done to the victims, to their families, especially their parents, to their friends and to the community itself.”

He called for systems to be put in place which adequately supported victims of child sexual abuse. 

Dr Doyle who has worked with survivors of clerical sexual abuse for more than three decades said he still grappled with the full dimensions of a worldwide child sexual abuse crisis. 

He said the Catholic Church had shown an utter disregard for victims and followed a pattern of denial, intimidation and cover-up when alerted to allegations of abuse with clergy “transferred under the cloak of secrecy.” 

Dr Doyle said he was exited out of the Nuncio embassy in 1986 after a document he made about allegations of child sexual abuse became public. 

He also told the inquiry about rampant instances of child sexual abuse in America during the 1980s and said while some bishops “sincerely wanted to do the right thing” they were blocked by top tier administrative bodies including the National Conference of Bishops.

Dr Doyle estimated only less than 50 per cent of Catholic priests across the world were celibate. 

He did not believe celibacy was the cause of paedophilia.

On Monday, the inquiry released damning statistics which revealed between 1980 and 2015, 4,444 people alleged incidents of child sexual abuse relating to 93 Catholic Church authorities. 

But Ballarat clergy abuse survivor Peter Blenkiron said the real figure was much higher. 

“Multiply the 4444 figure by ten to include the victims who don’t report their abuse,” he said.

“Then times that by five to include secondary victims like families who remain damaged by this..that’s hundreds of thousands of people caught up in this.” 

“It’s been a black with white collar covered up plauge.”