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	Police Not the Answer in Archbishop's Abuse Claims By Christopher Pearson The Australian September 17, 2011 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/police-not-the-answer-in-archbishops-abuse-claims/story-e6frgd0x-1226139275017 SINCE The Weekend Australian broke the story last Saturday of Archbishop John Hepworth's allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of two dead priests and one still serving in the Adelaide archdiocese, there have been all sorts of spin and further revelations. Politicians from the main parties have latched on to the idea that the proper course of action for Hepworth from the outset was to make his accusations against the still serving priest, Monsignor Ian Dempsey, to the police. Adelaide's vicar general David Cappo, who resigned his position as chairman of the government's new Mental Health Commission yesterday, took the same line in his meetings with Hepworth; and Archbishop Philip Wilson reiterated the point in his statement on Wednesday. Cappo, acting on Wilson's behalf, had told Hepworth "if he was alleging any form of abuse, including rape, that this is a criminal allegation and that he should go to the police". But should he? Since 2007 Hepworth has said that he wasn't interested in retribution or compensation but in reconciliation with the Catholic Church. As Wilson, a canon lawyer, must know, the church has stand-alone internal procedures to investigate and resolve such cases. It in no way diminishes the seriousness of the canon law charge if the complainant declines to pursue the matter in the civil courts. He or she is by no means obliged to do so. When Hepworth first told me about the grim events of more than 40 years ago, back in May 2008, he said he urgently wanted to regularise his position with the Adelaide archdiocese, for which he had been ordained a priest. He hoped Dempsey, who strenuously denies the allegations, would leave active ministry without any public fuss. Hepworth dreaded a lengthy trial and the prospect that its outcome might well be inconclusive, given the difficulty of proving the charge beyond reasonable doubt after more than 40 years. As the global primate of the Traditional Anglican Communion, which is in the process of corporate reunion with Rome, he is also a very busy man, obliged to travel constantly. One thing Hepworth, his lay canon adviser Cheryl Woodman and the archdiocese do agree on is that in 2007 Hepworth was in a fragile state. Who in his circumstances wouldn't be? Until March 2008 he explicitly declined to authorise an official church inquiry. As he told me at the time, he also wanted to understand the scope and implications, especially for the TAC in its dealings with Rome, of such an inquiry. His caution seems warranted on several grounds. First, as an archbishop, he was told that the process for dealing with him would be one specially tailored. Then, two years ago, Cappo urged him to confront Dempsey face to face with his allegations in the presence of lawyers. It surprises me that someone with Cappo's experience in social work could fail to see that Hepworth would probably have been re-traumatised by such an experience, and declined to participate on the advice of his doctors. However, that refusal couldn't reasonably have been construed as failing to authorise a formal complaint, which in any event Hepworth and Woodman supposed had been in train since about March 2008. Sunday's statement from the Adelaide chancery stressed that there had been no delay and an orderly procedure. Nonetheless, the archdiocese has in the course of the past seven months described its inquiry as "on foot since 2007", "only at a preliminary stage" and "in its closing stages". It also announced last Sunday that it had retained Michael Abbott QC "some months ago", which Hepworth and Woodman described as "complete news to us". I think they were entitled to that information when he was appointed. Wilson's statement on Wednesday claimed that in eight meetings Cappo had invited Hepworth to give permission to proceed with the investigation officially and that on each occasion until February of this year he'd declined. Hepworth and Woodman, who was also present at the meetings, deny this. Hepworth says that neither of them was told or notified there was no official process in train until this year and believes the failure to tell them so in a timely fashion was an abuse of process. Woodman says "the goalposts seemed to move from meeting to meeting". Having read Hepworth's complete file on the matter, I note there is very little correspondence from Cappo or Wilson, where normally such cases leave a huge paper trail. Hepworth describes as "ludicrous" the chancery claim that he hadn't formalised his complaint until this year. He'd understood that his letters and statements of 2008 were a formal complaint, as had the Melbourne archdiocese when sent copies and it acted on them promptly. He also noted "On November 22, 2008, I requested in writing (formally? How can I know?) Archbishop Wilson to take my case for reconciliation with the Catholic Church to the Holy See." Hepworth has consistently maintained that resolving the question of his own canonical status with the archdiocese, as a victim who had good reason to abandon his priestly duties, was inextricably linked to his role as the TAC's primate and chief negotiator with the Vatican. In one of his few replies, Wilson accepted as much when he wrote: "I will fulfil the request to report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the substance of your discussions that you have been holding with Monsignor Cappo when I am in Rome in January 2009." However, as I reported last Saturday, there was a catch. Wilson declined to put anything to Rome in writing, saying he'd speak to CDF officials personally. Corroboration has just come to hand enabling me to convey the tenor of that conversation. At a later meeting, while Hepworth and his predecessor as global primate of the TAC, Archbishop Louis Falk, were talking, the CDF's Monsignor Patrick Burke approached them. Hepworth recorded Burke's remarks in a letter last year to Woodman. "In an aggressive tone, he complained about my contacts with the media and stated that Philip Wilson had been here recently and said you [i.e. Hepworth] were like a madman, a lunatic. He continued in this way for some time, as we walked downstairs." Woodman, although present, was not part of that conversation, but she spoke with Burke a little later during morning tea. "He asked me outright if Archbishop Hepworth was mad and I assured him he was not." On one view, all this to-ing and fro-ing can be seen as a storm in a teacup. But there is another way in which it can be read. Pope Benedict's first major speech after his election set out ecumenism as the first priority of his pontificate. In doing so, he wasn't referring to Rome's relations with the Baptists or the Assemblies of God but to groups with enough in common with Catholicism to make sacramental reunion possible: the Eastern Orthodox, the TAC and the conservative Lefebvrist Catholics who rejected some of the post-Vatican II changes in the late 1960s and 70s. If the Pope and the curia decide this has just been an ill-conceived clunky process leading to a personality clash between two stubborn individuals, nothing much may come of it. If the Holy See judges that Wilson has been trying, for whatever reasons, to make life miserable for Hepworth as the TAC's chief negotiator and perhaps to delay or even forestall the dissident Anglicans' return to the fold, he will have a lot of explaining to do in Rome next month.
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