Catholic Church Responds to 'Inexcusable' Findings Handed down by Parliamentary Inquiry

By Mark Colvin
The ABC News
November 13, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-13/catholic-church-responds-to-inexcusable-findings/5089924?section=vic

[with audio]

The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, spoke today, acknowledging that the Parliamentary Inquiry had set out inexcusable failures in the Church's response to abuse. Father Shane Mackinlay is spokesman for the Catholic Church in Victoria and he spoke to Mark Colvin.

MARK COLVIN: The Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, spoke today as we've heard. He also put out a statement saying the Parliamentary Inquiry had set out "inexcusable failures" in the Church's response to abuse.

Father Shane Mackinlay is spokesman for the Catholic Church in Victoria. I asked him if it was inexcusable, why the Church had spent so long excusing it.

SHANE MACKINLAY: The Church's submission to this report itself documents those failures and describes them as inexcusable, as terrible failures.

Facing the Truth, our submission, sets out the way in which victims have been betrayed and the trust that was placed in the Church was betrayed by priests and religious personnel who committed these appalling crimes.

And also, by church leaders who failed to respond to that in an adequate and appropriate and timely way: believing victims when they came forward, responding to them in a way that provided genuine assistance and intervening to ensure that that abuse couldn't happen in the future.

MARK COLVIN: Many people would go further than that and say it's not just the priests, it's not just the individuals, it's not just the leaders: it's the leadership and it's the structure, the system itself.

SHANE MACKINLAY: I think there's - we're very aware at this stage of the way in which the extraordinary respect that has been given to clergy in particular is something that has been a great disservice to the Church and has allowed this sort of abuse to occur and has also allowed abusers to continue with their deception and their cunning without being detected and without being reported and without being acted on in a definitive way which stopped them.

MARK COLVIN: Do you accept that legal stonewalling and general stonewalling of the victims by the Church in itself added to their suffering?

SHANE MACKINLAY: Where that's happened, clearly, that adds to a victim's suffering. The Church's responses of the last nearly 20 years have been precisely to respond in a way that is generous and meets victims in a pastoral and sensitive and non-adversarial way.

MARK COLVIN: But we had a story on this program just a couple of weeks ago about a priest who was found guilty and sentenced in a case where people were told that they could either go to the police or go through Towards Healing and that was the choice: in other words, they would get no compensation in the Towards Healing process unless they agreed not to go to the police.

SHANE MACKINLAY: That's simply not the case in that many of the people who - it's true that no Church process will continue while a police investigation is underway. However, many people have come to the Church processes for assistance and compensation after they have been to the police and been involved in successful prosecutions.

MARK COLVIN: Do you say, then, that Towards Healing was a fair process?

SHANE MACKINLAY: The Inquiry itself has said that Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response are a genuine attempt to meet victims' needs and that, for many victims, they have made a significant contribution to addressing their situation.

MARK COLVIN: But a genuine attempt is not the same as an adequate attempt necessarily.

SHANE MACKINLAY: And it points out some failures in them, some limitations. We're very committed to continuing to improve them. One of the most significant improvements will be in setting up the sort of oversight that we've recommended to the inquiry and that the inquiry has adopted, which is a statutory oversight by the Government of these sort of processes to assure the community of their credibility, their rigour and their independence.

MARK COLVIN: Final question: a lot of people are looking at the Vatican, looking at the new Pope who seems to have a fairly new ethos about a number of things and this may be one of them.

How is the Church's position likely to change?

SHANE MACKINLAY: That's something which will be really interesting to see and to be part of. It's very clear that Pope Francis has brought great hope and encouragement to many people and, to the extent that he can assist the Church in responding and insist on the Church responding in all its processes with integrity and care and generosity, then that's good for everyone in the Church and victims and the wider community as well.

MARK COLVIN: So this report will be read in the Vatican?

SHANE MACKINLAY: I would presume so.

MARK COLVIN: Father Shane Mackinlay, a spokesman for the Catholic Church in Victoria.