Abuse Victims Give Parishioners a Message

By Jane Lee
The Age
November 26, 2012

http://www.theage.com.au/national/abuse-victims-give-parishioners-a-message-20121125-2a1mm.html

Hear this: Clergy abuse activist Mark Fabbro hands out flyers outside Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral. Photo by Justin McManus

VICTIMS of clergy abuse should report allegations and suspicions to police rather than to religious organisations, victim advocates say.

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) handed out flyers to parishioners as they left Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral on Sunday, asking for victims, witnesses and people with suspicions to contact the police, a therapist or a support group. Most people accepted the pamphlets.

''Come forward and get the help you deserve,'' the flyers say. ''If you reach out healing, justice, prevention and closure are possible. If you stay silent, they are not possible. Please don't suffer in isolation, shame, anger and self-blame.''

It comes as psychologists, suicide helplines and support groups said they had been flooded with victims' calls for counselling since Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced a royal commission on child abuse on November 12.

SNAP's American founder, Barbara Blaine, said most victims of clergy abuse turned to the church for help first.

''We believe it's far more important for these crimes to be investigated by police, rather than by church officials … (who) have not only allowed but in many ways promoted our predators and allowed them to move on and abuse additional children,'' she said.

SNAP's Australian leader, Mark Fabbro, said many victims were bullied when they reported abuse to the church. He was one of the first child abuse victims to approach the church's internal complaints system, Melbourne Response, when it was established in 1996.

''I wanted to get an acknowledgement and an apology and look at options for reparation because my life was a mess,'' he said. He was told there was ''no point'' reporting the abuse to police because the alleged perpetrator was no longer alive.

''I remember being very isolated and disempowered. When I came out of [Melbourne Response commissioner Peter O'Callaghan, QC's] office I felt I had come all the way here for nothing.''

A police spokeswoman also encouraged victims of all forms of child abuse and those with information to report to police.

In the police submission to the state inquiry into child abuse, Chief Commissioner Ken Lay said the Catholic Church had dissuaded victims from reporting abuse to its officers and hindered its investigations, with no referrals of abuse cases to police since the 1950s.

Melbourne archdiocese spokesman James O'Farrell said the church ''actively encourages all victims to report offenders to police''. The church explained to victims police powers to punish offenders, both in writing and in person, he said.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart reiterated the church's call for mandatory reporting requirements to be extended to religious ministers and other personnel, ahead of any recommendations by the state inquiry and coming royal commission into child abuse. ''There is no reason to wait,'' he said.

Legislation should be changed to ''require that allegations of serious crimes made outside confession be reported to police in a way that prevents the police's power of compulsion being used to discover the identity of the complainant from the source of the report'', he said.

This would help prosecute offenders while balancing adult victims' right to privacy.