Vatican's Punishment for Lismore Paedophile Priest Was to Live a Life of Prayer and Penance and Offer Mass
By Janet Fife-Yeomans
THE punishment for a Lismore paedophile priest as ordered by the Vatican was to live a life of prayer and penance and offer mass every Friday for his victims. This was despite him admitting to his numerous "crimes", the royal commission into institutionalised responses to child sex abuse has been told. He remains a priest living in retirement in the Lismore presbytery and has not been stripped of his rank or had his "faculties removed", as the Catholic Church describes being returned to the lay world. The revelations came during damning evidence by the Bishop of Lismore, Geoffrey Jarrett, who said that he had not known for five years that the Vatican had required bishops to report all child sex abuse complaints to Rome. However, the commission heard that the first letter to the world's bishops from the Vatican's Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith about the new edict in 2002 was written in Latin. "Not all bishops are fluent in Latin. Not these days. Once we were," Bishop Jarrett said. A translation of the letter was later sent out but Bishop Jarrett, who took over at Lismore in 2001, said it was not until 2006 he was made aware of the directive from the Pope. He said that the case of this priest was one of four he had referred to Rome and the only one he had received a reply about. The priest's name remains secret although he was reported to Grafton Police, to the NSW Ombudsman and to the Commissioner for Children and Young People and has been banned from unsupervised contact with children. The commission was told he is one of 53 listed on the website of the Lismore Diocese and $50,000 was paid to one victim. Bishop Jarrett said it took two years for the Vatican to get back with their disciplinary ruling. "The CDF required that he live a life of prayer and penance. He was required to offer mass every Friday for the intention of his victims," Bishop Jarrett said. The commission has heard that when the Vatican in 2001 originally ordered all cases of child sex abuse by clergy to them, it was unable to cope with the vast number of referrals and instead limited it to cases 10 years old. Royal commission head, Justice Peter McClellan, said that would have ruled out the overwhelming number of cases. The hearing continues in Sydney. CATHOLIC RING SEX CHARGES A FORMER Catholic Brother has become the fourth person charged in relation to sexual offences against two children at a western Sydney school in the 1980s. Strike Force Avia was set up in October, 2011, to investigate alleged assaults on a number of children at a Catholic college at Blacktown and a Catholic primary school at Lalor Park. Three men - two teachers and a former Catholic Brother - have previously been arrested and charged. Detectives arrested a fourth man, a 58-year-old former Catholic Brother now living in Lithgow, at Penrith railway station about 11.30am on Wednesday. He was charged with 20 offences - including two counts of buggery, 13 counts of indecent assault on a male and five counts of indecent act with a male - relating to offences against two boys aged between nine and 11. The incidents are alleged to have occurred between January 1980 and May, 1981, when the former Brother worked at the Catholic college in Blacktown. He will appear in court at a later date. Strike Force Avia detectives appeal for information.
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