In late 2004, two years into the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney's botched handling of a sexual abuse complaint against priest Aidan Duggan, the executive director of the Catholic Church's National Committee for Professional Standards, Julian McDonald, did something extraordinary. He inquired into whether Duggan, prior to joining the Sydney Archdiocese in 1974, had form.
This would not have been within McDonald's usual ambit, but Duggan's accuser, John Ellis, had requested the NCPS review the archdiocese's handling of his case — a process stymied early on the basis the archdiocese had no record of other allegations against Duggan, deemed too senile to answer the allegations.
In October 2004, McDonald emailed the Child Protection Office of the Catholic Church in Ireland. A month later he emailed John Mone, the recently retired bishop of Paisley in Scotland. Then, in mid-January 2005, he emailed the director of St Margaret's Children and Family Care Society, a voluntary adoption agency in Glasgow.
He asked that records be checked for any allegations against Duggan, 'who was born in Scotland and became a Cistercian monk, ministering in Scotland for some years before leaving the Cistercians and coming to Australia where he was incardinated into the Archdiocese of Sydney'.
McDonald's letter was promptly referred to the bishop of Galloway, John Cunningham, who responded on 25 January 2005. 'It will be very difficult for me to be of much help to you, given the lack of information regarding the matter about which you enquire,' Cunningham wrote. There was no indication as to when Duggan was in Scotland or the circumstances of his incardination in Sydney. 'Your letter simply says that he was a Cistercian monk and indicates that he was ministering in Scotland, which seems strange as Cistercian monks normally live an enclosed life. Any information regarding these matters would be of help to me.'
This correspondence is now public as evidence before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. It barely raised a ripple in the cross-examination of archdiocesan officials and lawyers over how and why it managed to first dismiss the complaint, in defiance of the Church's own Towards Healing protocols, then aggressively dispute what its own assessment had accepted to be true. But it is an oddity: the only evidence of a Church official actively attempting to check Duggan's past; an attempt destined to fail.
For McDonald's information was both scant and misleading. Duggan was not a Cistercian but a