Time long overdue to stamp out child abuse

According to the Newcastle Herald, a senior Priest in the Maitland Diocese (which includes Newcastle and the Lower Hunter region) has been charged with what amounts to a "cover-up" of complaints of sexual abuse made by school-boys against a Priest, John Sydney Denham. The senior Priest was the Principal of the School at the time. Fr Denham was one of the teachers.

• ‘‘It’s the first time such a senior Catholic Church leader has been charged with allegedly concealing child sex crimes by another alleged offender.’’

What did the senior Priest do when he was told about these "alleged offences"?
He apparently caned the students.

Yes, that's right.

What is worse, the senior Priest has been charged with "eight counts of sexually assaulting a boy, 8, at a Waratah church in 1984 and 1985, and two counts of assault." (Presumably the caning incidents).

Following up the crass and blindly stupid comments reported from America yesterday, where a senior Franciscan Friar (albeit of a break-away group) tried to blame children for seducing priests.
Can you believe that?

Well, that's a long way away, but Newcastle is just up the road.

Personal disclaimer: As many people know, I was once a Catholic Seminarian (student Priest). One of my classmates was John Denham, now know in Police reports as John Sydney Denham.
He has a pile of charges against him, but has not yet faced a trial.

•  "Father Denham has not entered pleas to 47 charges including indecent assault and buggery involving 14 boys in the 1970s. He will return to court in September."

Why these matters move so slowly mystifies me.

Surely it is time for a Royal Commission in NSW into these Child Abuse events, not just relating to Catholic priests, but all teachers and persons in positions of authority (and trust) relating to children.

But with the Far Right of the Liberal Party so completely under the control of the male Catholic (Jesuit trained) cabal in the NSW Parliament, I hold out little hope that this will happen.
But it should.

Denis Wilson

Silence, discretion or straight-out lies? Sexual abuse and the Catholic Church

This Blog post is about the Catholic Church and its apparent cover-up of sexual abuse incidents. A sub-theme of this article is the call by some people for a Royal Commission into sexual abuse in Australia.

Wilcox's brilliant cartoon
from today's Sydney Morning Herald

Firstly some disclaimers:

1. I was raised as a Catholic. I no longer practice that religion, but it is something which is part of my culture, training and family background. It is not something which I can ignore, nor deny.
2. I was never subject to sexual abuse at school - unless you widen the definition slightly, to include Bullying and aggressive and painful Nipple Tweaking by a sadistic Christian Brother. At the time I only thought of this as sadistic behaviour - in retrospect I am no longer sure it was as innocent as that.
3. I went through a few years in a NSW Catholic seminary (St Columba's at Springwood, NSW), between March 1966 and June 1968, and then went to Rome for a further 18 months. One of my seminary colleagues is mentioned in the Sydney Morning Herald article. John Usher (now Monsignor John Usher), was a "senior student" at the time, not a close colleague. He is now a highly trusted colleague of Cardinal Pell, and is now Chancellor of the Archdiocese of Sydney (one of many other functions he fulfills).
4. One of my classmates in Springwood subsequently (years later) came to public attention: "John Sidney Denham pleaded guilty to 29 child sex charges involving 27 boys under his care while a Roman Catholic priest in Newcastle in the 1970s." At the time I knew him, I saw no signs of his propensity for abusing children. But isn't that usually the case?

Yesterday's Sydney Morning Herald Editorial is worth reading in full.
it states, in part:

•  "When Patrick Parkinson calls for a royal commission into sexual abuse and its cover-up in the Catholic Church, he deserves a good hearing. As a Sydney University law professor, he knows a thing or two about the machinery of inquiry and the suitability of extreme powers possessed by royal commissions. As an adviser to the Catholic Church on sexual abuse cases, he is well acquainted with the church's obstructionist culture of concealment. ''We need a royal commission with subpoena powers,'' Parkinson said this week. ''The files of the Catholic Church must be opened up.''
  
  "This is the running sore that won't leave the church alone."
  
  Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/editorial/shedding-light-on-church-concealment-20120704-21hih.html#ixzz1zil8M4Td

"Broken Rites" story (updated on 9 June 2012) says:

• On 3 September 1991 (according to an official document in the possession of Broken Rites) Father XYZ was called to a meeting at the Sydney Cathedral presbytery, attended by three church officials:

• Reverend Brian Lucas (then based at the Sydney Cathedral), who was involved in the administration of the Sydney archdiocese.
• Reverend John Usher, of the Sydney archdiocese, chairperson of the Australian Catholic Welfare Commission.
• Reverend Wayne Peters, a senior priest of the Armidale diocese, whose responsibilities then included the Armidale diocese Tribunal (Peters later became Armidale's vicar-general).
  

Interviewed by the three officials, Father XYZ admitted that he had been committing sexual acts on young boys in his parishes. [According to the New South Wales criminal laws, these offences would constitute the crime of indecent assault of a child.]
Source:

That story has been followed-up by the Four Corners program on Monday Night - which I could not bring myself to watch in full, as I find the subject too stressful. But I did follow their main points.

As I indicated in line 2 of my Disclaimer, above, I was never subjected to sexual abuse, but a number of my friends and colleagues were (but I only learned that much later in life). It is a painful issue, for sexual abuse is one of those things, where the pain continues for years after the incident. Psychologically, it resurfaces when one's vulnerability is greatest, and when one least expects it. A casual comment, a headline in a paper, or a familiar face on the street, can bring issues flooding back into one's head.

I have followed at a distance, reports from the USA of the corruption in the Boston Diocese, and more recently I saw much of a very stressful BBC program about an Irish-American priest who had retired to Ireland after years of sexual abuse of children. To say he lacked empathy and understanding of his offences is an understatement. It was shown on the ABC in May. The powerful and painful program, called "Deliver us from Evil", documented the long-term and systematic abusive behaviour and yet the apparent lack of empathy, or remorse, of the main offender, Fr. Oliver O'Grady.

• "(The film's director, Berg) lucidly details how the Catholic Church knew about O'Grady, yet in an elaborate shell game designed to avoid liability, lied to parishioners and the police while shuffling him from parish to parish. The church's obfuscation is almost as repulsive as O'Grady's crimes."
  
  Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/deliver-us-from-evil-sunday-may-6-20120503-1y0h1.html#ixzz1zjEJuOvA
  
  A "short" for the film is available here (click on Watch Trailer).

There have been some rare, but famous cases in the USA where convictions have been recorded, not for perpetrators, but for other Priests who failed to act to disbar offending Priests, or who failed to report them to civil Authorities - which would parallel the suggested legal action against the three NSW priests, mentioned in the Four Corners program.

To read the open letters on the ABC comments page is an eye-opener.
And it goes without saying it is not just the Catholics, though as Wikipedia records, they are extremely frequent offenders. That is an appalling litany of offences - and they are only the proven cases.

We all know that it is not just the Catholics, but lets state that "for the record".
Anglicans, Salvation Army, Jehovah's Witnesses (whose victims are still so scared, they talk on Facebook and the Internet in coded terms, for fear of retribution), and there is a big question mark over the Boy Scout movement in Australia, or specifically the history of sexual offences by Scout leaders. And State-run orphanages have been involved as well. And locally, we cannot forget the highly placed persons who were involved as collaborators in the Frank Arkell and Tony Bevan circle of child abusers in Wollongong. 

•  "... long running campaign to expose paedophilia in the Wollongong community and in the local Catholic Church. In 1993 the Mercury first revealed the problem of widespread sexual abuse of young boys by exposing two paedophiles, Father Peter Comensoli and Brother Michael Evans. The Page 1 exposé was preceded by four months of investigation during which Mercury staff obtained statutory declarations from seven young men. 
• Involved in the paedophile network, as revealed by the Wood Royal Commission into the NSW police, was a former Wollongong Lord Mayor and Independent NSW MP, Frank Arkell.
  When Arkell was the victim of a gruesome murder on June 27, 1998, about 10 weeks before he was to have appeared in court on sex charges involving young males, the Mercury published with its next issue an eight-page wrap-around, labelled “Arkell Murder Edition”. The
  Page 1 story, written by Cullen, described the appearance of Arkell's body in detail: “His skull had been caved in, and a Rotary Club pin driven into one of his eyes. Tie pins were jammed into his cheeks.”

In many of these cases, there are highly placed members of the legal profession who act as cross-examiners, ridiculers and intimidators of inexperienced children trying to give evidence. They act to "run interference" on behalf of their powerful, deviant and abusive friends, and in all likelihood, some have been participants in the abuse themselves.

Educational Institutions, especially Boarding Schools, seem to be the greatest "targets" for paedophiles. 
Christian Brothers schools, Marist Colleges, and in particular St Stanislaus College at Bathurst all seem to be magnets for these people. 

Leading clerics, even the present Cardinal Pell, (then Bishop of Ballarat) supported known sex offenders such as Fr Gerald Ridsdale.

Why did Bishop George Pell
accompany Fr Gerald Francis Ridsdale
to court on 27 May 1993
when Ridsdale was jailed for child-sex crimes?

 And now a Victorian report states:

• CONFIDENTIAL police reports have detailed the suicides of at least 40 people sexually abused by Catholic clergy in Victoria, and have urged a new inquiry into these and many other deaths suspected to be linked to abuse in the church.
  In a damning assessment of the church’s handling of abuse issues, the reports say it appears the church has known about a shockingly high rate of suicides and premature deaths but has "chosen to remain silent." 

It seems to me that wherever adults are involved in "caring for children" there is a great likelihood of abuse, unfortunately. It seems to me, that the first thing society ought change is that we ought to stop pretending that sexual abuse does not happen. 

IT DOES. AND THE PEOPLE WHO DO THESE THINGS LIVE AMONG US. 
Let us all open our eyes and ears.

After writing this I feel obliged to issue a general warning:
please be careful with your children.

****************

What are the chances that a Royal Commission will be called and given wide terms of reference?

With regard to the possibility of a Royal Commission, one has to ask which level of Government ought conduct such an Inquiry?

The Federal Government is currently not over-run with Catholics, indeed many profess to be atheists. But, certainly there are enough "cultural Catholics" amongst the Federal Government - for many of them might well have been educated in Church schools. Anthony Albanese, Tony Burke, Stephen Conroy, Craig Emerson, Laurie and Martin Ferguson, John Murphy,  But if this call for a Royal Commission carries on until the next Government is sworn in, if it is led by Tony Abbott and his ilk, look out. There are many, many Catholic-trained politicians on that side of Politics. Tony Abbott himself, Joe Hockey, Christopher Pine and there are many more.

In NSW, where the Liberal-National Coalition is in office:

• Barry O'Farrell is Catholic educated, with an Irish family background, but I see little evidence of his religious views. But it is one thing to not be an active supporter of the Church, and a totally different thing to preside over a Royal Commission into the Church. That's unlikely to happen. 
• Chris Hartcher is a Riverview boy, educated by the Jesuits, and I would describe him as aggressively Catholic in his attitudes.
• Andrew Stoner, while seemingly not a Catholic, describes himself as a "committed Christian"
• the "back-room boy" who controls the hard right grouping is David Clarke, a member of the Opus Dei, a right-wing religious organisation which has managed to infiltrate itself deeply within the power-structure of the Catholic Church. 
• Greg Smith is the NSW Attorney General, and another active Catholic.
• And there are many more.

There is no way the O'Farrell Government will call a Royal Commission into sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, in my opinion.

Any Royal Commission on this subject would have to be called by the Federal Labor Party and quickly. Otherwise this idea is simply not going to get the necessary political support. Tony Abbott, who styles himself as a confidante of Cardinal Pell certainly would not call such a Royal Commission.

The Catholics have achieved a strangle-hold on politics in Australia.

You might assume that many of the Catholic politicians are decent people: 

• unless you are a woman, who wishes to control her fertility
• or unless you are gay or lesbian.

but those are matters for another day.

But after writing this
I feel I need a good shower.
But more importantly I feel
obliged to issue a general warning:
please be careful with your children.

*********************
 
If you can stand it, there is a vast amount of references available about sexual abuse in Australia. Here are just a few of the readily available sources:

• http://www.deception.com.au/images/hypocrites.pdf
• http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/bccrime.html
• http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org/
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Australia
• http://www.snapaustralia.org/
• http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=31038

Is this "The Split" all over again - or merely the Bonfire of the Vanities?

I am not a Labor Party historian.

I am just old enough to have some political memory (more than most "reporters" in the Media, it seems).
I distinguish "reporters" from "Journalists" who are few and far between in this issue.

1. Here is one reporter who has tried to be "a player" in the move to unseat Julia Gillard - without declaring his various bits of "baggage"*** which might just influence his position.

• *** Uhlmann unsuccessfully contested the ACT 1998 general election for the electorate of Brindabella with the Osborne Independent Group, a strong pro-life ticket with stated objectives of blocking both euthanasia legislation and legislation to decriminalise abortion.(Wikipedia - Chris Uhlmann)

So, is it once again Queensland (this time Rudd) against Victoria (this time Gillard)?
Or is it Catholics against the Non-Catholics?
 

No doubt it is no that simple.

Such things seldom are.

But consider HV Evatt and BA Santamaria with Vince Gair as the Wild Card.

Maybe it is simpler than that.
There is a decided anti-feminist streak in the Santamaria and Gair groups in that scenario, and in the modern re-play, we know about Tony Abbott, and Rudd is not in favour of female Prime Ministers, or at least, all of them we have had so far in Australia. 

And then there is the mysterious link to Abbott's endorsement of Chris Uhlmann and Uhlmann's own track record of anti-abortion advocacy.

My own memory of The Split is limited. But what I do remember is very unpleasant, and at the time, mysterious.

1. I remember, as a child, my Father getting very nervous when a couple of "nice men" in dark suits turned up to our house in Melbourne, and asked (demanded) to speak to my father, in private. They were not personal friends of his. Years later it turned out that these were "Groupers" BA Santamaria's people trying to pressure my father to assist them. He had no money to spare, but maybe they thought he had some influence. He went to ground for years after that. In fact, it coincided with him having a nervous breakdown, which was seldom talked about in my family.
2. Many, many years later (1976 to be precise), I remember being interviewed for a job by a senior Victorian businessman and Liberal Party officer, who was Chairman of a Tourism Board, (I was applying for a job on their staff). He was impressed with my credentials, then suddenly he asked: "Where were you educated". I told him of my University training, etc
   No, no, ....... I mean where were you educated? The penny dropped.
   He meant which School had I gone to.
   Part of me regrets not having answered "Grammar, Sir".
   I never got the Job.
   He wouldn't appoint a Catholic (even a "lapsed Catholic") to the job.

I look forward to the time when the ABC holds an Inquiry into the goings-on behind the scenes before that 4 Corners story which played a major part in manufacturing this debate. There is so much more which has not been said about the role of the Media in all of this mess.

Ok, the Media did not create it, but they surely have poured a big can of diesel on the Bonfire.

To steal a good title - "The Bonfire of the Vanities"

**********

At the very least People ought declare their personal baggage in this debate, as I have always attempted to do (in this Blog).
 

My own personal baggage includes a stint as a former Seminarian.
That give me a parallel, but NO link with Tony Abbott and Chris Uhlmann.
But before anyone gets excited about that, it also links the three of us with Joseph Stalin.

The Intelligence² Debate - Stephen Fry

Topic: "That the Catholic Church is (or is not) a force for good in the world."

This was the theme addressed by Stephen Fry, actor and writer, in the "Intelligence² Debate".

He speaks beautifully on a subject which is clearly has troubled him for a long time.

I recommend that you watch this video.

The full video runs for approximately 20 minutes, but I believe it is well worth the time.

There are two series of Questions and Answers in furtherance of the debate.

Sleeping Lies will Dog You, Cardinal Pell.

Sleeping Lies will Dog You, Cardinal Pell.
It is with shame and disappointment (but no surprise) that I read today that Cardinal Pell is still sticking to his legalistic line regarding an "apology" to Mr Jones, the man at the centre of a sex abuse non-apology which Cardinal Pell filibustered over, prior to the Pope's visit.

You may read the story in "The Age" (Fairfax) website today.

For goodness sake, Cardinal Pell, get on with the job which is surely to deliver JUSTICE - if you know what the word means - to Mr Jones. Stop being "political" just for a moment, if you can. Fix the problem.Admit that Jones was abused.
Admit that you covered it up.
Face the truth.

Then, get on with delivering justice to all other victims of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church in Australia.

If you do not do this, other lies will continue to dog you, Cardinal Pell.

Pope's Secret meeting with victims insults the other victims

The Pope held a private mass attended by four victims of s*xual abuse. Trouble is these hand-picked people were all compliant, and had been appeased by the processes of the Church.
What does that say to the hundred and thousands of others, whose complaints have not been addressed by the Church, or worse, whose legal claims have been defended on narrow legalistic bases? What about them?

"The church's NSW director of professional standards, Michael Salmon, said he had chosen them after a request "a number of weeks ago" because they had been through the church's internal processes, had achieved a level of healing, and would be comfortable attending Mass.

None had pursued civil legal actions but one had pursued criminal charges. All were abused as minors - one by a lay person in a school context and the rest by priests."

Source: news.com.au

As Greg Barnes in crikey.com.au says today:

As Andrew Morrison SC, who acted for Ellis, told the High Court, in effect the Catholic Church "in New South Wales and the ACT has so structured itself as to be immune from suit other than in respect of strictly property matters for all claims of abuse, neglect or negligence, including claims against teachers in parochial schools at least prior to 1986. That immunity, they say, extends to the present day in respect of the parochial duties of priests. We say that such immunity would be an outrage to any reasonable sense of justice and we say it is wrong in law."

Barnes continues:

"But the issue here is should the Church and Cardinal Pell have played legal hardball with a s-x abuse victim in the first place, and having been successful in their legal strategy, will they do the same thing again?

"If Pope Benedict’s apology is to mean something more than platitudes, then Cardinal Pell and the Catholic Church should stop hiding behind their expensive lawyers’ tactics and immediately apologise and compensate John Ellis for the abuse he suffered at the hands of the Church."

In the opinion of this blogger, the manner of the selection of appeased victims says it all - it is not designed to solve anything (for arguably the people who were invited have already been "healed" (supposedly). The problem for the Church is precisely with the people whose wounds have not been healed.

Clearly active, articulate persons like the Foster family were deliberately excluded, because the Church recognised it could not handle them. So, the mass, as a healing process, was a sham.

As the final act of World Youth Day, this act debases and demeans any achievements of the whole WYD process. It confirms WYD to be nothing more than a Tourist Promotion exercise for Sydney and a shallow and meaningless PR Stunt for the Catholic Church.

Nothing more, nothing less.

"Pell-ter Skelter"

The Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell has failed in his lobbying this week against the Stem Cell research bill. In so doing he has damaged his own public standing.

THE SMH reports today:

"The Catholic Church supports adult stem cell research, especially for health cures, and remains opposed to the destruction of human life," Cardinal Pell said in a statement.

"In our democracy, parliament legislates. I regret the vote of the NSW Legislative Assembly on cloning and hope that the Legislative Council will be better informed."

"The cardinal said the Sydney Catholic Life Office was prepared to offer information to "any person who wishes to understand the pro-life position better". Cardinal Pell has come under attack by MPs after he said Catholic politicians who voted in favour of the bill could expect consequences for their place in the life of the church."

*****

The failure of Cardinal Pell to bring with him the openly Catholic members of the NSW Legislative Assembly has raised the public profile of Pell's lack of "authority" - and believe me, Cardinal Pell is an "authoritarian."

His public hectoring of elected members of Parliament has also allowed avidly anti-Papist commentators of the Far Right to link Pell's rantings with an unlikely bedfellow, Sheik Taj Aldin al-hilali. The question is too easily asked: What would people think if Sheik Hilali tried to exercise the same "authority" over elected Members of Parliament? There would be screams of outrage, and threats of investigations of breach of Parliamentary Privilege. Why would the same issues not be raised against Cardinal Pell?

The Cardinal needs to realise that he is not Archbishop Danny Mannix, and it is not Australia during the 1950s.

*****

While on the subject of Cardinal Pell, I wonder quite what he was doing visiting the ANSTO's Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor on 23 November 2006. See the Bragg Institute's website. Scroll down for the photo of 23 November. Even the Bragg Institute's website makes no comment on what George was doing there. I wonder if they invited him, or if he asked for permission to visit?
*Photo of Cardinal Pell (top) "courtesy of" Larvatus Prodeo, although I note that it was taken in Germany, but they did not give a photo credit.
** Photo of Danny Mannix courtesy of the amazing website of the "Catholic Diocese of the Australian Military" (I kid you not - there is such a "diocese").

I note with fascination that by the end of WW1, Daniel Mannix, who had (in 1914) publicly condemned Australia's participation in the War, and actively opposed Billy Hughes's referendum on Conscription (in 1917), was appointed - in that same year - by the Department of Defence to be Army Chaplain-General (Catholic). This ironic situation arose following the death of the previous incumbent, Archbishop Carr. Archbishop Mannix succeeded Carr in the Archdiocese of Melbourne, and the was then nominated by the Catholic Bishops to take over Carr's former responsibilities. The Department of Defence must have been grinding their teeth when they made that appointment, for at the start of the war, many people regarded Mannix as a traitor. Here he was being appointed as Army Chaplain-General, less than four years later!

As Wikipedia says:
"By the end of the war Mannix was the recognised leader of the Irish community in Australia, idolised by Catholics but detested by many Anglo-Australian Protestants, including those in power federally and in Victoria - for many years he was ostracised and not invited to the official functions his position would have entitled him to attend."

My, my, the irony of politics of Church and State in Australia.