The Catholic Church gave pedophile priests too much sympathy and victims' suffering was often minimised, the Melbourne archbishop says.
Archbishop Denis Hart said the church "absolutely" had a problem with priests and church workers abusing children.
"I would say that these crimes occurred to some degree and that direct and serious enough action was not taken," Archbishop Hart told the child abuse royal commission on Tuesday.
Archbishop Hart said some within the church tended to view clergy sex abuse as a moral failing, not a criminal one.
"I would see that people sometimes have a greater deal of sympathy for a church person than they should have, and they didn't sufficiently identify the crime that that person had committed for what it was," he said.
"I think these times have made us see quite clearly, both in what we think and know, but also in our action, what we must do."
Archbishop Hart said the evidence collected by the archdiocese's Melbourne Response, set up in 1996 to handle clergy sex abuse allegations, showed the harm done to victims was not taken seriously enough.
"I would have to admit that with what we have been doing now shows that there was too much of a tendency to minimise the seriousness of the matter, and I repudiate that totally," he said.
He said the church was much better at determining who would not be suitable for the priesthood, but it was a process that needed continual work.
Archbishop Hart has announced a review of the Melbourne Response capped compensation payments, made to more than 300 victims, to be completed by the end of November.
Anthony Foster, whose two daughters were raped by notorious abuser Father Kevin O'Donnell, said the commission heard an "awful lot of words" from Archbishop Hart, but no promises for action.
"I would have liked to have seen the archbishop actually respond to his own conscience and his own morality and actually do the right thing and just move forward with what could have been done, instead of calling another so called independent review of his system," Mr Foster told reporters.
Mr Foster said the church already knew what it needed to do, including increasing or abolishing the capped compensation payments and reviewing past payouts.
The Melbourne archdiocese has identified 81 known offenders across its parishes, with another 15 unidentified.
Of the 24 offenders still alive, only seven have been convicted.
Eight were never reported to police, the commission has been told.
MELBOURNE ARCHDIOCESE IDENTIFIED OFFENDERS:
* 81 total, 57 dead
* 24 still alive
* 16 of those reported to police
* Of those, seven convicted, one had charges withdrawn, eight not prosecuted
* Another eight not reported to police, none in active ministry
Factbox Source: Melbourne Response independent commissioner Peter O'Callaghan QC.
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