Abuse Was Covered Up: Melbourne Archbishop

9 News
May 20, 2013

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/05/20/15/04/catholic-church-slow-to-act-on-abuse

Melbourne's most senior Catholic has admitted the church covered up child sexual abuse, was slow to act against abusing priests and placed its own interests ahead of victims.

Archbishop Denis Hart says a knighted former archbishop kept reports of sexual abuse to himself and that the church was keen to look after itself when addressing complaints, placing its reputation ahead of victims.

He described the sexual abuse scandal as "one of the darkest periods" in the church's history and conceded victims had committed suicide.

"The question of confidentiality of these matters was probably kept in one sense too much in that the church was too keen to look after herself and her good name and not keen enough to address the terrible anguish of the victims," Archbishop Hart said on Monday.

He agreed former archbishop, the late Sir Thomas Francis "Frank" Little, had covered up abuse reports.

"Archbishop Little kept all these things to himself and there were no records," Archbishop Hart told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry.

Pressed on whether there had been a cover-up he said: "Well I have to agree with that."

"The only person who's ultimately responsible is the archbishop at the time," he said.

"We were too slow to realise what was going on.

"These awful criminals are secretive and cunning.

"I'm not making excuses for any of my predecessors."

Archbishop Hart, who has been the Melbourne archbishop since 2001, agreed the crimes should have been revealed to the police.

Archbishop Hart said the community was looking for someone to take responsibility for the terrible acts that occurred.

"I take responsibility," he said.

"I apologise to the children who were the victims.

"We failed to recognise that the abuse was occurring, we failed to recognise that we had pedophiles in our midst, we failed to really listen to people when they came forward to complain."

Asked if the church was protecting its "treasure" - its good name, reputation and money - Archbishop Hart said he believed that was true but that had has changed since the early 1990s.

"I would certainly say that the church has been slow to act," he said.

"I would stand by what we've done since 1996 by pulling them straight out of ministry."

As well as taking that action the Catholic Church set up the national Towards Healing protocol and the Melbourne Response in 1996 to handle abuse complaints.

Archbishop Hart admitted in the past child sex abuse had been endemic in Melbourne's Catholic Church.

Twelve out of 50 priests identified by the church were responsible for more than half of the offences committed, he told the inquiry.

Archbishop Hart said he was prepared to work with the community to carry the "eradication of this awful evil forward".

But his statements were questioned by inquiry committee members who pointed out the church spent more money on the annual salary of its communications manager than it paid victims.

The Melbourne archdiocese pays its communications manager between about $150,000 and $180,000 annually, executive administrative director Francis Moore told the inquiry.

Pressed on how this amount compared with compensation payments made "under the best case circumstances" of $75,000, Archbishop Hart said the church was generous when compared with state compensation.