OPINION: Archbishop Mark Coleridge isn’t your Church an accessory to abuse?

By Madonna King
Courier Mail
February 22, 2014

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-archbishop-mark-coleridge-isnt-your-church-an-accessory-to-abuse/story-fnihsr9v-1226834071991

Tell me Your Grace, what do you tell a nine-year-old who asks what the teacher did to those little girls and why he remained their teacher? Picture: Jerad Williams Source: News Limited

MADONNA King pens a letter to Brisbane’s Roman Catholic Archbishop Mark Coleridge in the light of this week’s royal commission evidence.

YOUR Grace, I’m Roman Catholic to the boot straps. I’m also the mother of two young girls, both attending cracker Brisbane Catholic schools.

But I’m running out of excuses on how to answer the growing evidence that the Church has snubbed, hid, brushed-off, facilitated – I could go on but you probably get my point – this sexual abuse epidemic.

Up until now, I’ve been saying what the Church says; that many institutions suffered the same shameful problems, but once alerted steps were taken blah blah blah.

That fitted with me. It was a painful episode in history, but it was all over, done and dusted.

But that’s not true, is it? In fact, the royal commission evidence this week shows that answer is a sham.

This case, where 13 young girls had their innocence stolen and their futures mired in misery, happened relatively recently, long after the scourge of sex abuse had hit our headlines.

This was only a few years ago for goodness sake, after dozens of preachers and teachers and others who we taught our children to respect were thrown into jail.

It was even years after Peter Hollingworth was forced to step down as governor-general because of criticisms of how he had handled abuse complaints as an Anglican bishop.

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So claims of ignorance don’t wash anymore. Nor does this defence that we did our best, or didn’t know the extent of it, or were determined to stamp it out.

It sounds like a reply of the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. But the storyline on this one would be seen as a bit far-fetched, even for Hollywood.

A monster molests girls at a good Catholic school. Their pleas of help are muted by those who should know better and, when he finally leaves, he’s invited back!

So many things failed in this case and almost everyone should have known better. The principal. The school. Catholic Education. And certainly the Church.

Ex-principal Terence Hayes has been singled out, but the fall for this needs to come from much higher up in the church. And don’t forget the real criminal is Gerard Byrnes, the pig who used these girls as his play things.

I reckon and I hope you agree Your Grace, that there is a special little room in hell for men like Gerard Byrnes.

I’m not defending Hayes either but he’s just a small cog in a big wheel that didn’t bother to place priority on the young victims.

Tell me Your Grace, what do you tell a nine-year-old who asks what the teacher did to those little girls and why he remained their teacher? I need help with that one.

This week, as I saw my daughters drag their school bag home, or cling to every word their tennis coach uttered, or even serve as altar girls at Church, I couldn’t get those 13 girls out of my mind.

And I imagined the haunted look in the eyes of their parents. As a journalist you get to know that look.

Denise Morcombe has it. So does Victorian mum Rosemary Batty whose boy was killed by his father last week. As a mother, I want to cry every time I see it.

All our lives are busy Your Grace and, in our household, packing lunch and getting to school on time can be a big deal.

I can’t imagine what it would be like to have one of my daughters come home and want to shower quickly, to wash away the stain of a teacher who should be rotting in hell.

I know it’s wrong to hate, but I’d hate, and I’d hope someone would stop me doing more.

Gerard Vincent Byrnes pleaded guilty but isn’t the Church an accessory after the fact here? And won’t it remain that way until it moves heaven and earth to ensure those 13 young girls once again see the world through the same prism my young daughters use?

Sincerely.