Not Another Whitewash on Catholic Church Sex Abuse Claims

By Mike O'Connor
The Courier-Mail
July 9, 2012

www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/answers-needed-on-claims/story-e6frerdf-1226420438185


STOP me if you've heard this one - allegations that a Catholic priest has sexually abused boys are investigated by the Church and no action is taken.

Some stories get better with the telling but not this one, which has been told too many times already and was reiterated in sickening detail on the ABC's Four Corners program last week.

I watched the show at home with my partner, who, as men claiming to have been sodomised and had fellatio performed on them by priests related their experiences in grim detail, kept glancing at me.

She is not of the faith. I am - and I knew what she was thinking.

How can the Church, your Church, have failed to act in the face of substantive claims of abuse and subsequent suicide?

By the end of the week, the Bishop of Armidale in New South Wales had announced there would be an independent investigation into the alleged abuse committed by a priest code-named Father F.

Another "independent" investigation?

Lesson One in The Handbook of Politics for Beginners states that you never hold an inquiry unless you already know what it will find, a lesson Rome has learned well.

Father F worked as a priest in rural NSW and was arrested in 1987.

He was charged with five counts of indecent assault and six of sexual intercourse without consent.

At a committal hearing a magistrate decided that a jury would not take the word of a 15-year-old boy who had brought the charges who, by then, had a criminal record, over that of a Catholic priest.

The case never went to trial and following its standard practice of moving the problem rather than addressing it, the Church quietly transferred Father F to Sydney.

As shown on Four Corners, it was here, with parishioners unaware of his past, that the pattern of alleged abuse continued until eventually, in 1992, the Church was forced to act.

Father F was called before three priests - Father Brian Lucas, Father Wayne Peters and Father John Usher - and questioned by them. The official version of that meeting is that Father F made no admissions.

Unfortunately for the Church, one of three priests, Father Wayne Peters, wrote a report on what he claimed was said on that day and it surfaced on Four Corners.

In that report, Peters said Father F had admitted he had fondled and performed oral sex on five boys aged about 10 and 11 years on a monthly basis.

No action was taken by the Church and Archbishop of Sydney George Pell has insisted that Father F made no such admissions because he had seen a file note that confirmed this.

Despite recording in specific detail what acts Father F performed on the boys and quoting him directly in his report, Peters has since dismissed the actions as mere "instances of misconduct".

What must confound any thinking person is how could three well-educated men, schooled in philosophy and theology and committed to living their lives in the mirror of Christ, not recognise the admissions they had heard were shocking and needed to be acted upon immediately?

The only concern that was expressed in Peters' report was that "the possibility always remains that one or some of the boys involved may bring criminal charges against Father F, with subsequent grave harm to the priesthood and the church".

The fear, then, was the truth would emerge and the Church's reputation would suffer - but what of the boys?

Did they not feel compassion for them and their families?

Were they not outraged by Father F's frank admissions that he had abused his position of trust and preyed on the innocent?

Two of Father F's alleged victims pursued civil cases against the Church, which paid up, but the money did the men little good.

One hanged himself and the other died of a suspected drug overdose, just two more casualties to add to the list of those who have fallen victims to the obfuscation that have been a hallmark of the Catholic Church's response to the sexual abuse of children by its clergy.

It seems incomprehensible that it was not until 2005 that Father F was defrocked - and that he remains untouched by the justice system. A lawyer who has previously advised the Church on sexual abuse cases and is well placed to offer an opinion, Patrick Parkinson, has said that the only course is for a royal commission to be convened with the powers of subpoena.

"The files of the Catholic Church must be opened up," he said.

He's right.

The Church has proved to be manifestly incapable of energetically pursuing and investigating allegations of criminal offences committed by its priests and brothers.

Unless there is a royal commission, reports of abuse will continue to surface, each further destroying the credibility of the Church.

I doubt, however, that it will happen because of the powerful forces within who fear what would be revealed. And that's a terrible thing.