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	Sacrificial Altar Boy By Barney Zwartz The Age September 15, 2009 http://www.theage.com.au/national/sacrificial-altar-boy-20090915-fpf4.html The crippling toll of clergy abuse can spread well beyond the original victim, as Gavan Boyle's case shows, writes Barney Zwartz. GAVAN BOYLE, a slight 14-year-old, had no idea what it meant when Monsignor Penn Jones told him to go last in the shower at summer camp and the other boys said "Gavan's next". What did happen next robbed him of his life, turning him gradually into a virtual derelict recluse who weighed about 38 kilograms when he died of a combination of starvation, alcoholism and untreated cancer in 2005. It also blighted the life of his family, particularly brother Jim Boyle and sister Jill Mather, who suffered grief, guilt, despair, anger and helplessness. Jim had a massive heart attack that he survived only because he had already taken himself to hospital, while Jill's marriage nearly crumpled under the stress, she put on 20 kilograms and lost all self-confidence. Jones – cathedral administrator, chaplain and chancellor of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, who received a glowing obituary from Archbishop Frank Little on his death in 1995 – anally raped Gavan, the culmination of three years of increasingly severe molestation at the summer camps. The family is naturally angry at Gavan's abuse. "I now regard Gavan's death as effectively a murder by Monsignor Jones, though the process of dying took many years," Jim Boyle told a conference on clergy abuse at the University of NSW the day before his heart attack in June last year. But what really makes their blood pressure soar is the response of the Catholic Church when Gavan (inset, above right) finally disclosed what had happened. They believe it amounted to a second round of abuse, of Gavan, themselves, their spouses and children. Jim Boyle told the conference: "The most painful issue remains the continuing callous and apparently calculated responses of the Melbourne Archdiocese to Gavan's pain and to mine and that of all my family." They are bitter about the process in general, the mental health experts at Carelink (the support agency set up for victims by the Melbourne diocese), the compensation panel, and especially Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, who, they believe, avoided both them and his pastoral responsibilities. After two years of trying, Jill says she had to enlist the help of the papal nuncio (Pope's ambassador) in Canberra to get him to amend a plaque on the wall of St Patrick's Cathedral honouring Penn Jones (pictured above, second row, in black). Gavan has been dead for nearly four years, but the ramifications roll on. In all the hideous stories of clerical abuse and shattered lives, the cataclysm wreaked upon the families and loved ones of the victims remains a largely untold story. They are victims too. What happened to Gavan Monsignor Jones was not Gavan's first unhappy encounter. At primary school he was beaten by a nun so badly that he could barely walk. When his mother complained, she was convinced on the grounds of "Christian forgiveness" to let it go because the nun was dying of cancer. At 12, in 1960, Gavan joined the altar boys at St Patrick's Cathedral, where he served until Archbishop Mannix's funeral in 1963. He attended the altar boys' camp at Shoreham, where he was assaulted with increasing severity each year by Jones, who was in charge of the camp. Gavan became reclusive, and at university became a binge drinker. He had serious car accidents and drink-driving convictions and was often beaten up because he had no sense of boundaries or danger, according to Jim Boyle, though he functioned well for many years. His worsening alcoholism meant he had to retire as a school teacher at 49. He would ring his siblings when the TV stopped about 3am, and talk for hours, often almost incoherent through drink and rage — he often had Jim's wife, Libby, or Jill in tears — but otherwise excluded them and everyone else. In 2004 he told them of the abuse, and they encouraged him to tell the church, which he did in 2005. He saw independent commissioner Peter O'Callaghan, QC, in February, and received a letter in March saying his story was accepted. He had two interviews with Carelink counsellors in April, saw the compensation panel in October and was offered $37,000 in November. Within a fortnight, he was dead. In his last years, Gavan would not allow Jim or Jill to help, would not even open the door or answer his phone. Finally Jim got into the house: "Gavan let in a priest he trusted, and didn't know I was there. He was lying on a mattress on the floor in his own stink, with no food in the house, just grog," Jim recalls. "We got a social worker to come in and threaten to commit him, and he finally went to hospital. He weighed 38 kilograms. "He died from a combination of starvation, alcoholism and cancer. He didn't want to live; he'd given up interest in life. He said on his deathbed: 'I want it all to go public. They just didn't care.' Those were almost the last words he said." What happened to Jim The biggest source of grief is the relationship he never had with his younger brother. "The abuse Gavan suffered insidiously destroyed our relationship. I felt utterly unable to reach him on an emotional level, and somehow I felt, and still feel, some responsibility for his demise." His family all knew something was wrong, that Gavan was suffering, but could not pry it from him. Jim's wife and daughters were also unable to get close to Gavan. "I often felt helpless and perplexed," Jim (pictured, below right) told the University of NSW. "I didn't know what was at the core of Gavan's problems or even the extent of his alcoholism, and that caused me to feel guilty as well as very concerned. My own brother desperately needed help, but I was helpless to provide that, or to understand or change his circumstances. That still frequently reduces me to tears. After Gavan's death, Jim looked for answers, trying to follow up the Carelink psychiatrists and Archbishop Denis Hart. What ensued, he claims, is itself a significant case of abuse. It left him tormented and enraged about Gavan's plight and by the anger he felt towards Archbishop Hart, who was "supposed to represent the compassionate heart of the church" but whose response he considered cold, calculated, evasive, and devoid of compassion. Both he and Jill say they were not happy with the level of psychological and pastoral support offered to them. Jim became obsessed by his quest for justice for Gavan and the family, culminating in his heart attack the day after he presented his Sydney paper. What happened to Jill Today Jill says she is coping well, but she has only recently come through the other side of a very dark time. Her marriage nearly crumbled and her children suffered greatly. Gavan would phone her three or four times a week, full of anger and abuse. "I found it hard to handle because I was helpless to do anything to make him feel better. He constantly belittled my work with the church, my abilities as a journalist with the local paper and as a mother . . . This made me feel confused and inadequate. My self-esteem plummeted. I rarely slept more than four hours a night, my weight rose 20 kilograms and my relationship with [my husband] Jim hit an all-time low. I felt most unworthy of being loved. I could not verbalise how I was feeling and ended up on medication for depression." Jim Mather says Jill was difficult to live with at this time. "She was very distracted and irrational, taking offence at almost anything I said or did. Even helping round the house caused friction, as she took it as a criticism of her abilities." It was only after counselling that they recognised this as a reaction to Gavan's abuse of her. It alienated her children from the church — none goes to Mass now. Jill still loves Mass — "the eucharist is very precious to me and that will never change, but I find it difficult to go" — but her deep commitment to the institutional church is over. She had been a salt-of-the-earth Catholic, working on diocesan committees, in the parish, and more. "I was a very, very active member of our church community. I do none of that now." After Gavan died, she tried to raise the idea of a national reconciliation day for abuse victims, along the lines of the "sorry day" for indigenous people, but met a brick wall. She also fought a two-year battle to fulfil Gavan's request to have the abuser's name removed from a plaque on the wall of St Patrick's Cathedral. The church's failures The three interviews with the independent commissioners and Carelink left Gavan deeply traumatised, Jim Boyle says, but he was never offered counselling — the one thing he wanted, as he wrote on the Carelink questionnaire. Nor was he given any other help to cope with the pain. Jim Boyle believes the Carelink intervention amounted to further abuse, so much so that he made 30-page formal complaints to the medical boards of both practitioners, which were rejected. After Gavan's death, Jim asked to meet the psychiatrist, who told him: "Some victims just get over it, others succumb to alcohol." Jim says he was appalled at the callousness: "No empathy, no sympathy, just blame the victim." When he sought a second interview, which the psychiatrist had offered, he was stunned to receive a letter from the archdiocese's solicitor saying it wasn't necessary. He felt intimidated. "For the first time in my life I was unable to sleep. I was in a hell of a state." The family also had questions about the role of the independent commissioner. The church's response The Melbourne archdiocese freely conceded to The Age that Gavan's case was shocking and tragic. But the church believed that the Boyles were as satisfied as possible with the response to them, until Jim's complaints arrived. It also feels that few cases have been reviewed as much as Gavan's because Jim's complaints were considered by the Medical Practitioners' Board, the Psychologists' Registration Board of Victoria, the Health Services Commissioner and the Legal Commissioner, all of which effectively dismissed the complaints. Archbishop Hart said in a statement to The Age: "I sincerely believe that we did all we could to help [Gavan]. He was very well supported by each element of the Melbourne Response scheme. He was given all of the best personal care he was entitled to. He was given financial compensation and offered all of the counselling and support services which he deserved. Regrettably, and for his own reasons, he did not make use of the services which were made available to him." "I have deep concern and compassion for all victims of sexual abuse," he said. "'I think the real great tragedy has been that there are any victims at all. The huge suffering of people who have been abused by priests and others whom they should have been able to trust — it just tears at my soul. "I find it a tremendous burden, and it's a burden felt by the majority of our priests and our people. And the church wants to do everything that we can to put things right." The family are not convinced. Both Boyles are adamant that the Melbourne Response needs to be overhauled. Gavan got money but little else, and money was the least of his concerns, they say. Jill Mather may never get over the guilt that she encouraged Gavan to turn to the church for help, having read "all the hype" about helping victims of clergy abuse. "I said to Gavan, 'They will look after you.' I knew it would take a miracle to fix him totally, but I thought someone could try. But they didn't. Nobody cared enough."
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