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	Church Can't Be beyond Justice By Terry Sweetman The Courier-Mail September 16, 2011 http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/church-cant-be-beyond-justice/story-e6frerdf-1226138118813 FOR the best part of 50 years, I have done my job as a newspaperman with one eye on a tangle of laws that often seemed designed to shield the guilty and ensure the ignorance of the innocent. They included defamation laws that, for most of that time, refused to accept the greater strength of truth, sometimes ridiculous suppression orders from courts, decrees of privilege that served to protect the powerful, the pompous and the malicious, and ludicrous security-related D Notices from government. I don't much like the system but I take some small pride in the fact I am able to tweak a few noses, expose some wrongdoing, deflate the self-important and reveal some truths despite the stacked deck with which I am fated to play. Others, particularly in the electronic media, have made their reputations by placing themselves above the law, deliberately defying the legislature, breaching court orders and occasionally going to jail. Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar. End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar. Some make their mark accidentally through ignorance of the journalistic trade on which they trespass, making a virtue of their limitless stupidity and puffing out their chests in postures of defiant heroism. Never have I felt above the law. Never has the print media for which I work felt above the law (if only for painful financial reasons). And, I concede, some laws regarding defamation, privacy and anonymity are there for perfectly good reasons. So, apart from a small twinge of unprivileged envy, what to make of Senator Nick Xenophon's naming of Catholic Church middleweight Monsignor Ian Dempsey as the alleged rapist of John Hepworth, Adelaide Archbishop of the Traditional Anglican Communion, years ago? The churches' embrace of arcane titles and breakaway groups and the passing of more than 40 years does not lessen the accusation's seriousness. However, the fact remains that Dempsey has denied the accusations and has never been charged, let alone convicted of any charge. Still, he is now publicly and prominently named as an alleged rapist and, maybe by extension, a homosexual and, thus, maybe unfit to be a priest. Hepworth, now 67, revealed at the weekend he was the victim of violent rapes at the hands of two priests when he was 15 and a trainee priest when he was 18. The claims concern dead priests Ronald Pickering and John Stockdale and Xenophon now says Dempsey was named as the third accused of rape. Curiously, after making such a grave accusation, Hepworth did not want Dempsey named and did not want to speak with police despite being encouraged to do so by the Catholic church. If true, it is a horrific story, no less so for the fact the three accused went on to well serve their church and, presumably, their congregations. Dempsey and the church are placing great store in the fact the allegations they deny do not involve an underage boy, although that might be of small comfort to people who have certain expectations of those who wear their collars back to front. Naming Dempsey was a grave step, taken after suitable cautions by the President of the Senate before Xenophon threw the punch he had been telegraphing. At least there seems to have been no base political or personal purpose in naming Dempsey. That is more than can be said for some fairly cowardly and disgraceful misuses of parliamentary privilege over the years. But Xenophon claimed a place above the laws that apply to the rest of us (the media included) and has possibly ruined a man in whom many people place their trust. Justified? In this extraordinary instance, I believe so, for the simple reason the church was disgracefully dilatory in dealing with the issue and treated with contempt the intelligence of its members and the wider community. It may also have fatally delayed the delivery of justice. Scything through the cant, the archdiocese of Adelaide has had more than four years to resolve the issue after written and personal complaints. But the church seems anxious to place the onus on an alleged victim rather than pro-actively putting its own hierarchical house in order. Significantly, it seems to have ignored the lessons of transparency so painfully learnt by other churches and dioceses and condemned itself to public criticism. Ironically, if Dempsey has been wronged, the hurt has largely resulted from the church's apparent attempts to protect him and itself from embarrassment. It is fatuous for the church to claim it would be unfair to stand down Dempsey pending an investigation because the allegations did not involve children. The allegations involve rape - a betrayal of trust, a misuse of empowerment and an unforgiveable crime in the eyes of society, although possibly not in the church. Churches seem selectively to forget that because they enjoy a peculiar legal, financial, moral and spiritual place in the community, we are entitled to judge them with peculiar severity. And we are entitled to judge them even more harshly when they refuse to heed the lessons of the recent past. Xenophon - acting in the name of the people of South Australia - has at least given the Catholic Church in Adelaide a lesson it seems so unwilling to learn itself. Xenophon is something of a senatorial show pony but this time he has demonstrated how parliamentary privilege should be used.
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