Canberra Priest Defends Catholic Sexual Abuse Investigations
By Tom McIlroy
A Canberra priest has defended his role in investigating allegations of child sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church, amid criticism of his decision not to keep records. Last week, former NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell accused Father Brian Lucas, the secretary of the Australian National Catholic Bishops Conference, and another priest of being responsible for "criminal inaction". Mr O'Farrell called for the leaders of the church in Australia to remove Father Lucas. The Canberra-based priest, who is also a trained lawyer, has answered questions in two inquiries about his involvement in handling of abuse claims dating back to the late 1980s. This month Father Lucas told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse sitting in Canberra he kept no notes of a 1993 meeting with serial paedophile Brother Kostka Chute. Giving evidence to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry in the Hunter region, Father Lucas said he conducted as many as 35 interviews with accused priests, and sought to convince them to resign from public ministry or work with children. One interview was with notorious paedophile priest Denis McAlinden. Speaking after giving more evidence to the royal commission in Sydney, Father Lucas said his decision not to keep records of the interviews was to encourage priests to be forthcoming about abuse and in some cases to resign voluntarily. "I think it is very important that we understand that there are a lot of dilemmas that arise in dealing with these situations and it is not easy to fit practices from other contexts into situations that often involve extraordinary sensitivity," he said. "We have to be very concerned to respond to the needs of victims. Sometimes that involves respecting a victim's desire not to go to the police, which then raises in the minds of some people questions about whether or not some action should be taken in some other way." Father Lucas said the church acted as quickly as possible to remove any "unacceptable risks". The Catholic Church has faced years of criticism in Australia and overseas in relation to its handling of paedophile clergy, including numerous cases where offending men were moved to other parishes or schools where abuse continued. Mr O'Farrell said the failure to report McAlinden to police as far back as 1993 was "inexcusable and unacceptable in anyone". The NSW inquiry report criticised Father Lucas for a failure of proper regard in the protection of children. Father Lucas defended his actions in the McAlinden case, seeing he was removed from ministry during a lengthy process of laicisation, where an individual is removed permanently from the priesthood. "The second, much more important fact, was that the adult victims of this particular priest were clear in their desire not to have police involvement," he said. "Hindsight is always a good way of sharpening one's mind. "At the time the feeling was that to attempt to take notes in a conversation where you're trying to persuade a priest to be open and frank and to make statements adverse to his own interests would not have enabled him to make those statements.” Father Lucas said the church was not being unfairly criticised during the hearings. "It is obvious from the evidence before the royal commission that almost all institutions that had anything to do with children had problems of this nature," he said. "The Catholic Church is of course the largest of those institutions. "So far as I would be aware, there would be no one known to have been involved in child sexual abuse who would be engaged now in public ministry so far as anyone would know." The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart issued a statement of support for Father Lucas last week.
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