Wollongong Bishop Would Resign As Matter of Conscience over Accused Priest

ABC
June 26, 2014

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2014/s4034010.htm

MARK COLVIN: The Catholic bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham has appeared before the child abuse royal commission and expressed his frustration with the Vatican at the spent years trying to stop a priest from working in the community, especially with children.

Bishop Ingham said despite Father John Nestor's eventual acquittal on charges of indecent assault, his past behaviour represented an unacceptable risk and he should not be allowed to work in public ministry.

He also echoed the views of his predecessor who said he would have to resign if John Nestor was allowed to continue to work as a priest.

Emily Bourke has the story.

EMILY BOURKE: The royal commission is continuing to shine a light on internal processes of the Catholic Church, and in particular it's forced the door open on how the Church investigates and establishes the facts around child sexual abuse allegations brought against priests or religious.

Today, a leading canon lawyer, Kevin Matthews, revealed some serious shortcomings.

Under questioning by Justice Peter McClellan and counsel assisting Angus Stewart, Dr Matthews admitted that cases against priests are frequently tossed out because they can't be proved through the canon law process.

KEVIN MATTHEWS: When we have two parties, both swearing oaths, one accusing the other and the other denying it, there's no other option but to say: not proven.

PETER MCCLELLAN: In a conventional court, people get cross-examined and you work out from the way they give their evidence and what they say about it whether they're telling the truth.

Why wouldn't that be the case for a canonical process?

KEVIN MATTHEWS: Well it depends on what's being presented. Sometimes when there's that opposition, sworn on oath, both strong, you just have to reach a decision that it's not proven. That's the way it's been done so far.

ANGUS STEWART: Well it's described sometimes in the common laws, the greatest instrument for the determination of truth is cross-examination. That's not an instrument known to canon law?

KEVIN MATTHEWS: But you have a situation like Father Nestor, where everything is denied, and you have the situation where the accusations are there. You have to come to a judgment.

EMILY BOURKE: Father Nestor was suspended from duty even though he'd been acquitted on appeal in 1997.

That suspension was overturned by the Vatican in 2000, but the following year, the bishop appealed that decision before a higher tribunal in Rome.

During what became a protracted appeals process, Father Nestor badgered his superiors in Wollongong to give him permission to work.

PETER INGHAM: I had to keep saying, "John, look, you're not in good standing and you don't have the authorisation to minister and I don't give any approval for you to celebrate those weddings."

EMILY BOURKE: The Bishop of Wollongong, Peter Ingham, says Father Nestor's persistence was striking.

PETER INGHAM: Over the time, you know, in the whole process of dealing with John, he objected to just about everything all the way, even when the facts were quite clear.

I consider that some of the uncontested behaviour of Father Nestor, including sleeping in a double bed with two teenage boys, to be risky, very odd and highly inappropriate.

That, together with a number of other complaints that had been made against him over the years, left me in no doubt that Father Nestor was an unsuitable person to serve as a priest or to be permitted to have any contact with children.

EMILY BOURKE: But the Vatican's handling of the case was slow and complicated.

PETER INGHAM: Well it was dragging on for so long; John was getting angrier about it, and, you know, I kept saying, "No, no, no, that he couldn't minister." The fact that John kept coming back to me all the time about, he wanted a celebrate, to be able to celebrate, he wanted faculties, he wanted to do marriages and I was saying, "No, no, no."

He wanted to work in this diocese, he wanted to work in that diocese. You know, I was thinking, well, you know, you've got to hold the line here, but it's going on for a long time.

ANGUS STEWART: Were you feeling some level of frustration at that stage?

PETER INGHAM: Oh yeah. Yeah.

EMILY BOURKE: The answer from Rome, when it came five years later, was that Father Nestor should be banned from public ministry. And in 2008, the pope went further and had him dismissed.

Bishop Ingham echoed his predecessor Archbishop Philip Wilson, who started the formal process around Father Nestor in the 1990s.

PETER INGHAM: Disappointed as I was, and my letters I think show that, that I wrote regularly to get an answer. But, you know, when the result came, it was very pleasing that, you know, our appeal had succeeded. But, if it hadn't, I'd have been in the same position as Archbishop Wilson.

ANGUS STEWART: Would you have been prepared to resign?

PETER INGHAM: I'd have had to.

It's not unreal to ask to see the Pope about a matter like this because it's a serious thing for a bishop to resign. But, you know, if you'd have a struck a stone wall, and in view of the situation we had here, you couldn't live with your conscience, could you?

MARK COLVIN: The Bishop of Wollongong Peter Ingham ending Emily Bourke's report.