Whistleblower Priest Says He Was Given No Support after He Spoke out about Child Abuse

Daily Telegraph
March 14, 2013

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/national/whistleblower-priest-says-he-was-given-no-support-after-he-spoke-out-about-child-abuse/story-fndo2dsc-1226597392725

WHISTLEBLOWERS who spoke out about child abuse in the Anglican church received death threats and were "effectively excommunicated", a Victorian parliamentary inquiry has heard.

Former Anglican priest Paul Walliker told the inquiry church members who reported cases of child abuse were publicly shamed and given no support from the church.

Fr Walliker said he was refused communion in the 1990s after blowing the whistle on a parish priest who was involved with a student in regional Victoria.

"The support we received from the diocese was zip, zero, zilch," Fr Walliker said.

He said his children were harassed at church, in their workplace and while walking to school by supporters of the offending priest, and he was forced to live in secrecy.

"What payoff was there for me in this; I lost money, I had to sell my house quickly, I had to move, I had to pay for counselling for my daughter," he said.

"Can you imagine what it's like having people you have known virtually all your life, turn around and spitting at you and calling you a liar because they don't want to believe the truth."

He said he was heartbroken when he was refused Holy Communion by his church and was forced to take it in secrecy.

Fr Walliker left the Anglican Church and is now an Orthodox Christian priest.

He called on religious organisations to be forced to tell victims of any admissions of abuse, even if there is no criminal investigation.

"There's got to be some sort of mechanism which acknowledges to the victim the validity of what has happened," he said.

"Validation is incredibly important for people and I know this only too well from my work within the church and from hundreds of people's have worked with."

The committee is investigating the response of religious and other non-government groups to the criminal abuse of children and has received more than 300 submissions and heard from more than 90 witnesses.

The committee is due to report in September after the inquiry was extended for another five months.