George Pell Has Held Views on Suing Catholic Church "for Some Time"

Phil Lawle
March 19, 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/george-pell-has-held-views-on-suing-catholic-church-for-some-time

In a statement last week, Cardinal George Pell said ‘my own view is that the church in Australia should be able to be sued’. Photograph: Mark Baker/AP

Cardinal George Pell has believed child sex abuse victims should be able to sue the Catholic church for some time, his private secretary has told a royal commission.

Dr Michael Casey, who has been the Sydney archbishop’s private secretary for more than a decade, said that while he had not heard Cardinal Pell express it in the terms quoted at the royal commission last week, he understood it was his view.

“I think it was certainly his view that people had the right to take civil action against the church or church entities for sexual abuse.”

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney handled a complaint by John Ellis that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill in Sydney’s southwest from 1974 to 1979.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan on Thursday asked Casey when he became aware it was the cardinal’s view the church should be able to be sued.

Casey said he could not say with precision when he first became aware of it but it was “in recent times” that he heard it expressed in the terms quoted at the commission.

On the opening day of hearings last week a statement from Cardinal Pell said: “Whatever position was taken by the lawyers during the litigation, or by lawyers or individuals within the archdiocese following the litigation, my own view is that the church in Australia should be able to be sued.”

The statement was reported widely in the media as a change of heart by the senior churchman.

Casey said Pell’s statement did not surprise him and it was always taken for granted the church could be sued.

“I never understood anyone holding to a proposition that the church is not able to be sued.”

When the Ellis case went to court, church lawyers argued that the defendants named by Ellis, the property trustees and Pell, were not proper defendants to be sued.

The landmark supreme court finding upheld that argument and has been seen as creating a legal shield for the Catholic church.

McClellan asked Casey who Ellis should have sued.

Casey said he understood that the estate of Pell’s predecessor, Cardinal James Freeman – if insurances were in place – would be the entity.

He said Pell’s statement to the commission could be taken to mean “if there was not … an entity to sue, then we should look to addressing that in some way – whether by giving legal personality to the entity in some other way – so there is someone to sue”.

Casey was also asked why he did not take up the recommendations of a national panel to offer Ellis an apology and renewed effort at mediation.

When pressed by McClellan he agreed he and the archbishop were party to the discussions which led to excluding mediation.