AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (updated 23 March 2014)
Cardinal George Pell (as head of the Sydney Catholic archdiocese) directed the archdiocese’s legal battle against the former altar boy John Ellis, according to evidence and documents presented to Australia’s child-abuse Royal Commission in March 2014. Pell’s legal victory in 2007 (known as the “Ellis defence”) now forces church-victims to accept a discounted in-house “Towards Healing” settlement instead of suing in the civil courts for proper compensation, the Commission was told. And this Broken Rites article demonstrates that John Ellis was not the only victim of his abuser, Sydney priest Father Aidan Duggan.
John Ellis was thrice abused
According to statements and documents given to at the Royal Commission in 2014, the Sydney archdiocese victimised John Ellis three times:
The first abuse: In 1974 the Sydney archdiocese recruited Father Aidan Duggan (from a religious order in Britain) and appointed him to a Sydney parish (Bass Hill), where 13-year-old John Ellis was an altar boy. Duggan immediately used his priestly authority to begin sexually abusing John Ellis, thereby disrupting the boy’s adolescent development.
The second abuse: In 2002, when he was aged 41, John Ellis told the Sydney archdiocese about how his adult life had been damaged by this church-abuse. He sought an acknowledgement about this abuse, plus some support in addressing the damage. But the archdiocese behaved evasively, traumatising John Ellis further. The archdiocese refused him compensation and offered him only a discounted “pastoral” settlement (commonly known as a “Towards Healing” settlement). The draft settlement document stated that this settlement was being offered by:
1. George Pell (as the head of the Sydney archdiocese) and
2. the trustees of the archdiocese.
But the document would require Mr Ellis to give up his right to sue the archdiocese for proper compensation. Mr Ellis refused to sign away this right.
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.