Catholic Bishop Chided for Semantic Argument on Church Responsibility

By Emily Bourke
The ABC News
December 11, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-11/catholic-bishop-chided-for-semantic-argument-on/5150898?section=nsw

[with audio]

The Archbishop of Brisbane says Catholic clergy were like rabbits in the headlights in dealing sexual abuse allegations in the 1990s. The national inquiry is examining the church's Towards Healing protocols set up in the 1990s to handle sexual abuse complaints and how the redress scheme worked in a handful of cases in Queensland and New South Wales.

MARK COLVIN: The Royal Commission has been told that Catholic clergy were like rabbits in the headlights when dealing with a tsunami of sexual abuse claims in the 1990s.

The national inquiry is examining the Towards Healing protocols, which the Church set up in the 1990s to handle sexual abuse complaints, and how the redress scheme worked in a handful of cases in Queensland and New South Wales.

The Archbishop of Brisbane has described the Towards Healing process as messy and inconsistent and said there was spectacular bungling in the case of one victim in Brisbane.

Emily Bourke reports.

EMILY BOURKE: Seventeen years after Towards Healing was introduced, the Catholic Church is being tested on how well its own scheme delivers redress to victims of sexual abuse.

The Catholic Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, told the Royal Commission that Towards Healing is a work in progress

MARK COLERIDGE: In one sense, Towards Healing was done very carefully but in another sense it's a process that's been done on the run by people who were learning as they went.

That simple fact accounts for some of the extraordinary messiness of the way in which it was handled: not only data keeping, but the inconsistency that you've mentioned. This whole tsunami blew up out of nowhere in my sense of it. Now that might sound an extraordinary claim, but that's my sense of it.

Bishops and major superiors were like rabbits caught in a headlight. They didn't know how to respond.

EMILY BOURKE: In the late 1990s, Joan Isaacs went through the Towards Healing process in the Brisbane diocese.

She was seeking compensation, counselling and an apology. She received a $30,000 payment after two years of negotiations.

Archbishop Coleridge joined the Brisbane archdiocese last year, but he gave a frank assessment of how the church handled Mrs Isaacs' claim.

MARK COLERIDGE: A spectacular bungling on the part of the archdiocese of Brisbane, where everyone seemed to presume that someone else was doing it. And that's a lack of oversight. I think the Archbishop should have made sure that the commitment to pay for counselling was in fact honoured.

And then similarly with compensation. Now lawyers and insurers have their word to speak. But they can't have a final word.

EMILY BOURKE: In other evidence, it's emerged that the Brisbane archdiocese has paid out around $2.5 million to victims of abuse. There have been 99 past matters and there are currently nine cases still to be settled.

Archbishop Coleridge said he could access significant funds to pay for future claims.

MARK COLERIDGE: We have cash for services, something like $30 million. Every year we have a surplus, but it's a surplus that comes to us from the archdiocese and development fund. The surplus which was, last year, $22 million. That money has to do many things, but if the need were there and I judge the need to be there, I could draw on those sources, for instance.

EMILY BOURKE: But the Royal Commission is also looking at the church's legal responsibilities.

John Gerry, the former auxiliary bishop of Brisbane, came under intense questioning by Justice Peter McClellan over how the Church as an institution can deny legal liability for offences committed by its priests.

JOHN GERRY: We are sinners but we do our best.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Right. Well, when you say you are sinners, they are people who are members of the Church who are sinners, aren't they?

JOHN GERRY: That's right. All of us.

PETER MCCLELLAN: And some of those sins, as we know, involve very serious criminal offences, don't they.

JOHN GERRY: Correct.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Do you not think that the Church as a whole should share responsibility for those people who commit those serious criminal offences in terms of recompense to the victims?

JOHN GERRY: It shares the shame.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Why shouldn't it share the responsibility, Bishop?

JOHN GERRY: Because individuals are not responsible for somebody else's culpability.

PETER MCCLELLAN: There will be some listening to this who might think that this has now descended into a semantic discussion...

JOHN GERRY: I hope not.

PETER MCCLELLAN: ...and that you're avoiding the real question.

EMILY BOURKE: This afternoon, the Royal Commission began hearing the story of Jennifer Ingham.

JENNIFER INGHAM: From 1978 to 1982 I was sexually abused by Father Paul Rex Brown, who was a priest of the diocese of Lismore. I struggled desperately in terms of my mental health and, specifically, bulimia.

During the years of sexual abuse by Fr Brown I attempted to commit suicide on a number of occasions.

EMILY BOURKE: She took part in the Towards Healing process this year and it was facilitated by the Brisbane professional standards director Bernadette Rogers.

JENNIFER INGHAM: I was dumbfounded when Bernadette referred to my story as being an insurance matter. Bernadette said to me during the conversation, "They're bringing out the big guns." I could not believe that they were treating my abuse as though it was a commercial negotiation.

EMILY BOURKE: Mrs Ingham's complaint was settled for $265,000, plus another $11,000 to cover her legal expenses.

JENNIFER INGHAM: On all accounts I should not be medically alive. Any money I received has already historically been spent to being alive today.

I have come out of this process where Fr Brown no longer rents a space in my head and I truly forgive myself and with the real knowing it was not my fault.

MARK COLVIN: Jennifer Ingham, giving evidence at the Royal Commission. Emily Bourke was our reporter.