Bishop Geoffrey Hilton Says Priests Do Not Indulge in Gossip with Each Other

By Janet Fife-Yeomans
The Herald Sun
December 16, 2013

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/bishop-geoffrey-hilton-says-priests-do-not-indulge-in-gossip-with-each-other/story-fnii5s3y-1226784041100

Jennifer Ingham was the victim of abuse in the Lismore diocese for four years.

THE Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Hilton, was not aware of the extent of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church until he became bishop in 2001, he has told the royal commission into institutionalised responses to child sex abuse today.

Bishop Hilton said that priests were not gossips.

"Most priests would not indulge in gossip about things which were damaging to a priest's good name," he said, giving an insight into clerical life.

"Priests would tend, out of a certain discretion, not to talk among themselves about certain aspects of a priest's behaviour.

However he did hear about one priest who had told someone they had been to place in Thailand where "underage people were available for foreign visitors" and the priest was stood down and reported to the Holy See.

It was only Rome who could return a priest to a lay state, or in church parlance, "remove their faculties", Bishop Hilton said.

When he took over at Lismore, the retiring bishop had not told him about any difficulties he had with individual priests.

But Bishop Hilton said that he knew one of the priests, Father Rex Brown, had been removed from office because he was an alcoholic, had been convicted of possessing child pornography and was living in retirement on the Gold Coast.

Then in 2002 and 2007, victims came forward with their stories that Brown had sexually molested them.

Bishop Hilton said that in 2012, he became aware of Jennifer Ingham, who had been sexually abused by Brown for four years from 1978 to 1982 both while she was at school and then when she left.

Ms Ingham, 51, has told the commission that she had first told the church about the abuse in 1990 at a meeting in Lismore attended by Father Francis Mulcahy. Father Mulcahy has denied the meeting or knowing Ms Ingham.

Bishop Hilton said that "puzzled" him because Father Mulcahy had gone to school with Ms Ingham's father and he believed Ms Ingham and accepted Father Mulcahy had been at the meeting.

"In my mind, I didn't believe that Ms Ingham had confected a story," he said. Bishop Hilton was involved in the church's Towards Healing process with Ms Ingham who received $265,000 in compensation.

The commission, sitting in Sydney, is looking into how the controversial Towards Healing process works.

The hearing continues.