Decades and Decades of Abuse

By Derryn Hinch
3AW
October 11, 2012

http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/blog-with-derryn-hinch/decades-and-decades-of-abuse/20121011-27f86.html

The worst thing about the Victoria Police exposure of the Catholic Church’s deliberate and dedicated decades-long cover-up of sexual assaults on children by priests, is that it doesn’t surprise me. Not for a minute.

Even though it almost makes the gorge rise in the throat and makes me want to scream at everybody – at so-called church leaders, at some of the cops, and past governments – makes me want to shout: ‘What took you so frigging long?’

How many more innocent children have suffered at the hands of predatory priests because of systemic stonewalling and covering up and pervert protection in the name of God?

Catholic leaders are trotting out again. Same old pious bullshit. ‘We’re shocked and amazed by these latest allegations. Had no idea any of this was going on’. After all, remember, they haven’t reported to Police even one case of a priest sexually assaulting a child. Not one. They admit that in the past 14 years they’ve paid money to 300 victims. Hush money.

Sure, priests sometimes have been charged and convicted. But no thanks to the Church. The few that have been forced to pay for their crimes were nailed not because of the Church but despite it.

Police Commissioner Ken Lay is right when he cites examples of the Church hierarchy tipping off suspected paedophile priests. Giving them time to destroy evidence, throw away videos and create alibis.

They even did it in more subtle ways. Take George Pell for example. In my opinion he is a classic case. As I said in my last book:

One of the most evil and most cunning predator priests in this country was a Victorian named Gerald Ridsdale. His behaviour over many years caused the suicides of young men. In his younger years he shared a house with George Pell.

When he finally got charged and was making his first appearance in court, Pell ostentatiously turned up in full clerical garb to give Church support. Pell himself, of course, was once the subject of allegations of sex abuse. He stood down and was exonerated by a church inquiry.

But, this is a man of the cloth who once said ‘Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people’.

[So if you are a young woman, who for whatever reason, have had to go through the trauma of a pregnancy termination take solace. George Pell thinks you are worse than a priest raping a choir boy.]

According to another submission to the Parliamentary inquiry, from lawyer Vivian Waller, the now-Cardinal Pell refused to listen to a boy who was raped in Ballarat in 1969 but was in the room when the victim told another priest what happened. Reportedly, both times the victim tried to tell his story he was beaten -- but not by Pell.

Keep one thing in mind, as the mob with their collars turned back to front try to spin their way out of these damning allegations – the way they have for decades.

The Church admits some ‘past mistakes’ but claims things changed in 1996 with their Towards Healing project. 1996! That was ten years after I went to jail for exposing a paedophile priest named Michael Glennon. A predator who had already been in jail for the rape of a young girl. The hierarchy knew all about him and wouldn’t defrock him. I told them.

I sat in the court at a later sentencing hearing when another priest, in full regalia, appeared as a character witness for a truly evil man.

I make no apology for attacking these cover-ups year after year, decade after decade. Even if it did contribute to my losing this job.

But the Catholic Church, as it stands now always has and always will, protect the church long before attempting to protect the flock.

And I remain convinced that when some priests say ‘suffer little children’ they have a totally different meaning to what Jesus meant when he said it.