Catholic Church Responds to Abuse Claims

By Adam Harvey
ABC News
July 9, 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-09/catholic-church-responds-to-abuse-claims/4119582?section=nsw

[with video]

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: The aftershocks from the latest sex abuse scandal continue to shake the Catholic Church. Archbishop George Pell is under growing pressure over conflicting accounts senior clergy have given about the confessions of the priest known as Father F.

Tonight another victim has come forward to 7.30 to describe the abuse he endured at the hands of the disgraced former priest.

Adam Harvey reports the man's family reported the matter to the Church hierarchy, but nothing was done.

ADAM HARVEY, REPORTER: The spiritual heart of Sydney's Catholic community, St Mary's Cathedral. It's Sunday mass and the pews are full. If ever the spirits of the faithful needed lifting, it's now.

JULIAN PORTEOUS, AUXILIARY BISHOP: Once again, sadly the crime of sexual abuse of children has been raised. This is the most heinous crime.

ADAM HARVEY: The bishop reaches out to the victims.

JULIAN PORTEOUS: The Church recognising the terrible damage done to victims and their families, humbly ask them for forgiveness.

ADAM HARVEY: To the perpetrators too.

JULIAN PORTEOUS: We struggle and grow weary with effort. And perhaps at times we have fallen.

ADAM HARVEY: Out in the sunlight, auxiliary bishop Julian Porteous says the Church recognises the damage done.

JULIAN PORTEOUS: It's a reality, we have to face it and realise that we're sinful and we fall short as a church and we want to firstly ask forgiveness for any way that we've hurt people.

ADAM HARVEY: And for some of Sunday's mass-goers, that's enough.

MASS ATTENDEE: The past history might've been because of a different mentality that we won't go into, but I think they've established a process now that is objective and pretty rigorous and hopefully that should address the problems.

ADAM HARVEY: But among victims, there's no faith in the Church's response to this latest sex abuse scandal.

LEONIE DERKSEN, SISTER OF DANIEL POWELL: I think it's quite disgusting how they close it all - yeah, they hide it. It's - you know, they close ranks. They pass the buck. Most definitely. Um, if one can't help the victim, it's palmed off to someone else. Never to the police though. The police never seem to be the ones that get told.

ADAM HARVEY: Leonie's Derksen's brother Daniel Powell was targeted in the early 1990s when he was 11 by the priest known as Father F. Daniel's father had just died and the family turned to their new parish priest to help the little boy.

LEONIE DERKSEN: We trusted him of course because he was a family priest, the parish priest. You go to them in your time of need. ... Father F invited Daniel back to the presbytery on occasion. He also invited him for weekends away as well on his own, and by that stage, he obviously had the family's trust.

ADAM HARVEY: It took Daniel 13 years to tell his family what had happened on those trips.

LEONIE DERKSEN: Quite a shameful secret, as far as he was concerned. Where the guilt should be on that of the perpetrator and never ever the victim.

ADAM HARVEY: Daniel hanged himself in 2007. He was just one of the boys abused by Father F. The priest's sordid history was discussed at a 1992 meeting at Sydney's St Mary's Cathedral, when he was called before three of the Church's most trusted clergy, fathers Brian Lucas, Wayne Peters and John Usher. The Church hierarchy has given conflicting accounts of what happened at that meeting. Archbishop George Pell told Four Corners that Father F made no admissions.

GEORGE PELL, ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY: And that is the recollection of the three priests who were actually at that.

ADAM HARVEY: But in a letter written just days after the meeting, Father Wayne Peters detailed Father F's admissions. He'd touched and fondled five boys and performed oral sex on two of them. Father Lucas also says admissions were made.

BRIAN LUCAS, PRIEST (ABC Radio, AM, Friday, July 6th): I think it was more than he'd been a bad boy; this is criminal and wicked behaviour. But to take the matter further, with the police of course you'd need to have some names of who these men were and those men today ought to go to a police station and report this abuse so that justice can be done.

LEONIE DERKSEN: It's absolutely abhorrent, absolutely disgusting. I don't know how they sleep at night, to be honest. The guilt is just as much theirs for not going forward to the police. How are the victims supposed to get any justice if they are closed-mouthed like that?

ADAM HARVEY: Fathers Wayne Peters and John Usher won't speak. But 7.30 has learned of another victim of Father F whose name the Church did have. 'Bill', who didn't want us to identify him, was an altar boy at Moree in the mid-1980s.

'BILL' (voice altered): The abuse ranged from touching you to you touching him. The other times it would happen in your sleep. You would wake up with him doing things to you or, you know, you would be in a car or you would be out on his family's property in Armidale. You'd drive around shooting ducks and stuff with you driving the car or sitting on his lap doing that, him doing those kinds of things. I mean, there were times that there was a roomful of people. He was quite well-known for kind of tapping his legs and kids would come and sit on his knees or whatever and he would take the chance while someone turned their head just to touch you.

ADAM HARVEY: In an affidavit, Bill's mother said she'd told the local monsignor in 1986. The Church transferred Father F to Moree. They didn't tell police and they didn't follow up with Bill's mother.

Bill's left with the guilt and terror of his memories.

'BILL' (voice altered): I can still remember to this day feeling sick every time, feeling like my legs were gonna collapse, those kind of things. So it's really - I think it's that feeling of being put in a position where no-one's doing anything about it and you're not sure why.

ADAM HARVEY: Bill wrote to Archbishop Pell in 2002 detailing his abuse. Archbishop Pell wrote back that he had no jurisdiction and advised Bill to go to the police.

Lawyer Andrew Morrisson thinks there's enough evidence to charge the three priests at the 1992 meeting with concealing an offence.

ANDREW MORRISSON, SPOKESMAN, AUST. LAWYERS ALLIANCE: Any citizen who becomes aware of information which causes them to reasonably believe that a serious criminal offence has occurred has a duty in law to go to the police or other appropriate authority and disclose all they know about it. And telling the victim to go to the police does not answer that duty.

ADAM HARVEY: At least one more of Father F's victims, Damien Jurd, also killed himself.

For their families, life goes on, and so does their guilt.

LEONIE DERKSEN: I myself feel a certain amount of guilt, that I wasn't able to protect him and stop him from going with Father F. You know, it's - it's quite an emotional rollercoaster for us as well.

ADAM HARVEY: Father F lives in Armidale, near some of his former victims.

Back at St Mary's Bishop Julian Porteous says the Church is investigating. Its inquiry will be made by somebody it describes as an independent expert. But there are no details.

JULIAN PORTEOUS: We don't want to hold anything back. We want to be completely transparent. So we'll do all we can to ensure that this is a fair and proper inquiry and the results are able to be clearly established.

LEONIE DERKSEN: They should be prosecuted. You know, if a teacher or a layperson certainly hears that sort of thing, they need to bring that forward. Why can't they?

LEIGH SALES: And we're still trying to get one of the Catholic Church leaders on the program to answer some questions for you. We'll keep trying.