This special section of this issue of JASR explores a range of issues that pertain to the recent Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. In particular, and of major concern, religious organisations represented over 60 per cent of all institutions that were called to give evidence at the Royal Commission, which found that many of the organisational responses to disclosures of the abuse of children were inadequate and indeed harmful and led to a catastrophic failure of care.