Clergy Abuse Victims Sceptical of Cardinal Pell's Views

ABC - PM
November 13, 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2012/s3631911.htm

[with audio]

MARK COLVIN: Victorian victims of clerical sexual abuse are sceptical about many of Cardinal Pell's statements.

They're still critical of the so-called "Melbourne Response", which he set to handle complaints in the late 1990s.

And they don't agree that the church has improved its processes.

Samantha Donovan reports.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Cardinal Pell confirmed again today that he'd accompanied paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale to his court hearings several years ago.

But he said he didn't realise at the time the impression this would give Ridsdale's victims.

Melbourne man Stephen Woods is one of those victims. He was 14 when he was raped by the priest. He listened to George Pell's comments today with interest.

STEPHEN WOODS: He seems to be setting up a narrative that the Catholic Church is now the victim, that they are the ones who are just one of many assaulters in the society and yet I can't think of any other organisation that has had so many, even though there are many clergy, but they have had so many paedophiles, and of course tens of thousands of victims.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Cardinal Pell said today that the Melbourne Response, set up by him in the late 1990s to deal with complaints of sexual abuse, had been very well regarded by many.

But that's not Stephen Woods' impression.

STEPHEN WOODS: Working for Broken Rites we've had cause to come across a lot of people who have said that the Melbourne Response, as well as the Towards Healing, are both very failed systems.

They offer very small amounts of compensation and they are very lawyer-intense and very legalistically concerned, and so people have really often come out of it just feeling far more assaulted.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Stephen Woods believes the Catholic Church isn't responding well to news of the royal commission.

STEPHEN WOODS: They still don't get it. They just still don't get it because I think they are afraid because so many bishops over the years have been so culpable of so many crimes, particularly cover-ups, that I think they are afraid of what's going to come out.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Chrissie Foster's two daughters were raped by their parish priest when they were in primary school.

She felt Cardinal Pell was very defensive in press conference today.

CHRISSIE FOSTER: He was saying there was a smear campaign against the church and there's not a smear campaign at all. People are merely telling the truth and trying to be heard about their experience with the Catholic Church; the abuse in the first instance and then the treatment from the Catholic Church, and the hierarchy and the processes after that.

SAMANTHA DONOVAN: Mrs Foster was particularly struck by Cardinal Pell's insistence today that the seal of confession is inviolable.

She says it's one of the big issues for the royal commission to consider.

CHRISSIE FOSTER: I know he was insistent on it not being looked at but I think there needs to be mandatory reporting within the confessional about child sexual assault.

This canon law is the law of a foreign state, the Vatican. How can a foreign state law overrule our civil laws in Australia to protect our Australian children?

My daughter suicided. My other daughter binge drunk and then got hit by a car. She received 24 hour care, I mean and all the care Emma had up until she died - the church didn't pay for that.

MARK COLVIN: That report prepared by Samantha Donovan.