The families made the comment in a statement released to the Bega District News this week, after Cardinal Pell was convicted of five counts of sexually assaulting two choir boys in the 1990s.

"It feels as if the veil of secrecy that surrounds these child sexual assault cases has been pulled back and the general public is now expressing the same anger we felt in similar circumstances," the statement reads. 

The families said to hear defence barristers demean the sexual assault of a child as nothing more than "vanilla sexual penetration" - a phrase used by prominent criminal barrister Robert Richter, QC, who had been representing the cardinal - was abhorrent to most right-thinking people, but this was standard practice for what victims had to listen to. 

"To hear arguments that sentences should be reduced 'because this person is otherwise of good character' should never apply in cases of child sexual assault," the statement reads.  

"And people who offer up character references in order to support the perpetrator insult and harm the victims all over again." 

Ten people gave character references for Cardinal Pell, including former prime minister John Howard. 

"The Pell case has rightly shocked the people of Australia, not just because of the realisation that paedophiles operate within the most senior strata of our communities, but also because of the realisation that legal processes further work to humiliate and debase the victims," the families of Van Ryn's victims said in their statement.   

"But hopefully the Pell case, as also happened in the Van Ryn case, will be an opportunity to galvanise change in the legal system and how we deal with the victims of child rape.

"To harm a child is the worst possible offence. As a community we must support the victims and work to change archaic legal practices which in many ways still treat them as the problem." 

Cardinal Pell is appealing his conviction in court on June 5. 

In September 2015 Van Ryn, who is currently incarcerated at Cessnock Correctional Centre, pleaded guilty to abusing nine children between 2003 and 2014 and was sentenced to 13 years and six months.