AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Ursula Malone
A senior Catholic priest has told the royal commission into child sex abuse there is a tendency by some in the church to put the institution ahead of victims.
Monsignor John Usher, who served as Chancellor of the Sydney Archdiocese for a decade until his retirement last year, was recalling a meeting he had attended with then priest Father John Farrell in 1992.
“There was in those days and there still is in some places today an inclination to handle these matter as if we’re looking after the church,” he said.
During the 1990s, Monsignor Usher, along with Father Brian Lucas, was part of a small group of senior Catholic priests who were called upon to help bishops deal with offending clergy.
“Even way back then, my prime concern in any of these matter was the victims of any abuse that took place,” he told the commission.
Asked why he had given three different accounts of a diary note of the meeting with Farrell, he told the commission he was “only human”.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.