The Catholic order, the Society of Mary prefers not to be part of the church's complaint process and would rather go it alone.
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Its leader in this country said dealing directly with survivors works well for most of them and for the order.
Father Tim Duckworth has given evidence to the Royal Commission into Abuse in Care in Auckland.
The order has about 100 members who are priests working in education and the community.
Since the early 2000s, they have dealt with 81 complaints of historical abuse, 58 of them against children and 23 against adults.
Forty-five relate to schools, nine in residential care and 11 in parishes. Thirty-five complaints came in after the perpetrators had died.
Duckworth said in most cases it has taken survivors between 20 and 40-years to come forward.
He said in many cases the person harmed wants to engage directly with them, rather than the church as a whole.
''What happened to them was done by one of our guys who ruined in many cases whole aspects of the life of those people and I don't want to say go out there, some extraordinary group will deal with you and we will walk away and say what do we care.''
No formal apology to survivors from the Society of Mary has been forthcoming.
''To me an apology has to be made face to face.''
He said while he respects others who have formally apologised to victims at the inquiry, it is not his way.
''You don't break up with your girlfriend by text message, you don't tell someone you love them for the first time by email. You do it face-to-face. Now days with Covid and the rest of it, it might be you have to do it on Zoom, but it's still face-to-face.''
Father Duckworth said in cases of abuse and not just in the church, many people do not ever come forward.
He does not know if the complaints received by the Society of Mary are then just the tip of the iceberg.
''If it was a member of my lot, of the Society of Mary, I really do sincerely apologise if you have never come to us. If you want to come now at any stage come, and even if you just want to talk with us and begin and see what is possible.''
With 81 cases of abuse on file, the Society of Mary rates the highest across the Catholic Church as a proportion of total claims relating to adults.
Duckworth was asked why he thought this was.
''I find this very hard to say but some of the adults were I believe religious women (nuns). To me that is terrible, as terrible as it is with a child. For somebody to violate that, I find it thoroughly repugnant. Not that any other adult I find it fine or anything like that at all. It just strikes me even as a sharper dagger, one might say.''
He is critical of lawyers, who early on advised to fight any claim all the way.
''I thought to myself why are we fighting this. We say we are compassionate, honest and open and loving and we care about these people, so fight them back with a lawyer, no that is the wrong thing to do.''
Duckworth said any Society of Mary priest found to have abused someone is suspended from ministry for life, but does remain in the Society and living in its community.
''And he's got to be somewhere. Is he going to live next door to some school down the road in a house by himself?
"Not on my watch he's not. Absolutely not. He is going to live in a (Society of Mary) community where he is supervised and cared for and looked after and hopefully loved.''
He said the man needs to be supported.
''I don't want him to go away and feel so ashamed that he tops himself either to be blunt.'''
Duckworth said the only exception of being suspended from ministry is if the man comes across someone in the need of the sacraments of the Church, the last rights, and he can still perform it.
''Why? Because the person's more important than the job.''
He said he would like there to be mandatory reporting of abuse across all of society to stop any cover-ups.
''The government is really good at setting up statutory bodies and I am sure they could. I think that should be done. It stops cover-ups. Cover-up is the enemy of dealing with this sort of stuff.''
The Catholic Church's leader in New Zealand, Cardinal John Dew will give evidence to the inquiry on Friday which will include a formal apology to all survivors of abuse while in the care of the Catholic Church.
