The child abuse royal commission wants quick and lasting action from governments and institutions to protect children but its most controversial calls for changes to centuries-old church laws appear destined for failure.

The five-year inquiry's final report calls for a national strategy to prevent child sexual abuse, warning governments, churches, charities and other organisations that they must not fail children again.

It wants widespread reforms including extending mandatory reporting laws to include people in religious ministry, even if the information was revealed in confession.

The inquiry controversially suggests the Catholic Church consider voluntary celibacy for its priests, despite acknowledging it has been a major strand of the Catholic tradition from the earliest centuries.

Australia's Catholic leaders have agreed to take the commission's recommendations to the Holy See, but do not expect the church's laws to be changed even if its priests face the prospect of criminal charges for failing to report child abuse revealed in confession.

The Catholic Church is unlikely to yield to a royal commission's call to break the seal of confession.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher has rejected the focus on the confession and the commission's call for voluntary celibacy for priests as distractions from the issue of protecting children from sexual abuse.

"Killing off confession is not going to help anybody," he said.

The royal commission wants the Holy See to make numerous changes to centuries-old canon law including that the "pontifical secret" does not apply to child abuse allegations and to consider voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy.

Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, says the bishops will present the royal commission's recommendations to the Holy See, the church's authority in Rome.