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Church congregations have role in healing abuse victims

  • 18 August 2014

On Monday (18 August), we are beginning Round 8 of the Royal Commission’s investigation into the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations. While some of these have passed without significant media attention, and in one case the Wollongong church came out looking not too bad, this upcoming round, like the Sydney based investigation into the John Ellis case, promises to be explosive in its content. 

We received a preview of the matters likely to be investigated in the ABC’s Four Corners on 11 August. The program aired material relating to the Melbourne Response established by then Archbishop Pell to be the Melbourne Archdiocese alternate response to the national protocols being developed at that time by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Towards Healing. The program dealt with a number of specific cases of abuse including the case of Chrissie and Anthony Foster, whose two daughters Emma and Katie were assaulted by serial abuser Fr Kevin O'Donnell.

Their case was one of the first to be processed by the Melbourne Response process and has already been subject to investigation by a Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations. That inquiry involved some feisty, if not heated, exchanges between the parliamentarians and Cardinal Pell. His subsequent appearances at the Royal Commission on the John Ellis case were more circumspect. 

At the closure of the Commission investigation of that case the Cardinal was asked to make himself available for this coming round into its investigation into the Melbourne Response, to which he agreed he would if possible. So we can expect another probing process of question and answer with Cardinal Pell the star witness. Once again we will have the spectacle of a cardinal of the Church humbled before a secular authority. 

The Four Corners program also highlighted the prolonged suffering of a parish and school community at Doveton, Victoria, where it seems a number of paedophile priests were active over a period of decades. In one case, involving Fr Peter Searson, then Bishop Pell received a deputation from the local school making complaints against the priest. No action was taken to remove the priest from his position. In his evidence to the Victorian inquiry Cardinal Pell noted that he had spoken sternly to Fr Searson and told him to 'follow the protocols', though what protocols were being referred to was not made clear! 

While the program focussed on the inaction of
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