While NAPAC admitted it was a "really long time coming" for the Church to deal with the child abuse happening under its watch, it was "really good to see these latest changes happening".
The charity was speaking in light of new figures obtained by the NSPCC, which found the number of child sexual abuse allegations being reported to the police had gone up by a third in the year up to April, equally an average of 85 cases reported to the police every day in England and Wales.
Scotland and Northern Ireland also saw significant increases.
NAPAC said the increase was due to a change in culture encouraging more people to come forward, and that it expected "many, many more" to report their abuse in the future.
Gabrielle Shaw, its Chief Executive, told Premier: "It's taken a long time... for the Church, or Catholic Church, to wake up to this. But there are big changes happening.
"The National Catholic Safeguarding Commission has been set up for instance here in the UK, and more internationally we've heard the Pope setting up the inquiry into the behaviour of bishops.
"And I think we would've seen the report from the Methodist Church as well, about two or three weeks ago, which took a very honest and hard look at itself and the abuse over a 50 or 60 year period.
"It was excruciating... concerning some details, but that's fantastic to see the victims and the survivors and child safeguarding put front and centre."
Listen to Premier's Aaron James speaking to Gabrielle Shaw:
