text: This argument has been raised squarely before the Australian Royal Commission whose experience is that survivors find galling the Church’s failure to dismiss these abusive priests and religious. Civil society insists on “zero tolerance” for certain kinds of professional misconduct: lawyers who steal clients’ money, doctors who sexually abuse sedated patients and teachers who sexually abuse pupils are permanently struck from the register. The survivors ask: why are priests and religious treated differently under canon law? Church supervision has been tried over the past 50 years and failed miserably. The Murphy Commission in Ireland looked at it and rejected it. Many of the Royal Commission’s case studies have shown it was tried and failed in Australia. Justice McClellan pointed out that the Church could impose the same restrictions on dismissed priests and religious in return for the support that canon law requires when they have not been dismissed.