Frank Brennan Slams Church’s Actions over Abuse

By John Ferguson
The Australian
October 21, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/frank-brennan-slams-churchs-actions-over-abuse/story-fngburq5-1227097823975

ONE of the nation’s most senior Catholics has warned that the church must take legal, moral and collective responsibility for the systemic abuse of children before 1996.

Frank Brennan, professor of law at the Australian Catholic University, yesterday condemned the church’s handling of abuse more than 20 years ago and called for collective institutional responsibility.

He stopped short of criticising Cardinal George Pell, the former archbishop of Sydney, arguing that the church’s structures had been so opaque before 1996 as to have been dysfunctional.

He said Cardinal Pell’s recent evidence to the royal commission into child abuse made it possible to properly analyse the church’s position on the subject.

While it was understandable that Cardinal Pell’s critics had focused on his comments comparing the church’s responsibilities with the criminal act of any truck driver, the bigger picture could be missed, he said.

“Reviewing Cardinal Pell’s evidence, I have concluded that we Catholics need to accept moral responsibility and legal liability for all child sexual abuse committed by clergy prior to 1996, regardless of what might be the moral or legal position after 1996 when improved measures for supervision and dismissal of errant clergy were put in place,’’ he wrote in the online church publication Eureka Street.