Call for bishop to step up

By Joanne Mccarthy
Newcastle Herald
June 9, 2014

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2340358/call-for-bishop-to-step-up/?cs=12

ACTION: Bob O’Toole, who was abused as a child, says the time for talk is finished.

ACTION: Bob O’Toole as a child.

MORPETH man Bob O’Toole would like Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Bill Wright to walk in the shoes of Hunter Catholics for a day or two.

They were confused, devastated and horrified by the findings of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, Mr O’Toole said.

Adverse findings against two former bishops, the general secretary of the Australian Bishops Conference, and a number of Hunter priests, along with shocking news that a senior Australian Catholic official could be charged with a conceal-type offence relating to the late child sex offender priest Jim Fletcher, had stunned many into silence, he said.

But there’s growing anger about the Catholic Church’s, and Bishop Wright’s, muted response to those findings, and the failure to stand down Father Bill Burston and Monsignor Allan Hart as Newcastle parish priests.

Commissioner Margaret Cunneen, SC, found Monsignor Hart had known since 1993 that paedophile priest Denis McAlinden had sexually abused a young girl. McAlinden died in 2005 with his ‘‘good name protected’’ by the Catholic Church.

She found Father Bill Burston was an ‘‘unimpressive’’ and reluctant witness.

Mr O’Toole, who was sexually abused by a Marist Brother as a child, played a central role in the Newcastle Herald campaign for a royal commission in 2012. A photo of him as a child reminded the community the Church’s offences were against children.

Mr O’Toole backed Hamilton woman Audrey Nash, 88, who, in a Newcastle Herald article on Saturday, called on Bishop Wright to remove Monsignor Hart from Sacred Heart Cathedral so that she could return to church.

‘‘I don’t think he’s [Bishop Bill Wright] got a clue how people are feeling, otherwise he would have acted, and he wouldn’t have made some of the statements that he’s made,’’ Mr O’Toole said.

He dismissed Bishop Wright’s statement that Monsignor Hart and Father Burston were held in high regard ‘‘in most respects’’.

‘‘He needs to get out and talk to people because are they held in high regard? They’re not.’’

He also dismissed the bishop’s apology delivered at the inquiry last year, which Commissioner Cunneen described as significant.

‘‘We’ve had apologies ad nauseam. The time for talk is finished,’’ Mr O’Toole said.

A spokeswoman for the bishop could not be contacted.