We must still stand strong against those who betray our kids

Chrissie Foster at a 2019 rally of Victorians concerned about clerical abuse of children. Picture: AFP

Imagine discovering your 14-year-old child had suffered childhood sexual assaults by the parish priest at primary school; that the previous year of self-destructive behaviour and suicide attempts were a result of those ongoing assaults.

Imagine the rage. Imagine discovering 20 months later that a second child of yours had been sexually assaulted by the same priest, then that the priest had been sexually assaulting children since the 1940s. And that, through many complaints over the years, the hierarchy, bishops and archbishops, knew all about his history of offending but had not stopped him, which led to your children being sexually assaulted almost 50 years later.

We then learned that he was not the only pedophile clergyman of whom they were aware and protected. It caused a group of us parents to rage against the hierarchy for their deception, betrayal and culpability.

Our group spearheaded an effort that, in 1996, was unheard of, unthinkable, unorthodox and unbelieved. Regardless, we gave voice to what the hierarchy didn’t want to hear nor have publicly stated – their own criminal shortcomings, their cover-ups and mind-numbing cruelty.

My husband Anthony and I continued with our opposition to the actions of the hierarchy, their Melbourne Response and other injustices, at every opportunity while also dealing with disasters, heartbreak and tragedies at home. In 1999 our daughter Katie, while intoxicated – her way to forget the assaults – was hit by a car and spent a year in hospital, and still needs 24-hour care. In 2008 our eldest daughter, Emma, took her life after years of depression and drug-taking – her way to forget her abuse. It has been a long, hard and heartbreaking road witnessing the disintegration of my children’s lives.

In 2010 I was compelled to write a book on our experience, our efforts and the reality of pedophilia in the priesthood. Hell on the Way to Heaven was an effort to convince an unbelieving world of the unseen but common crimes committed against children and the damage it caused. To my surprise that book, with the help of our local MLA, Ann Barker, became a catalyst, along with other victims’ efforts, for Victoria’s 2012 Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and Other Non-Government Organisations.

Later that year the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was announced.

Bar two or three, Anthony and I attended every session of the Victorian inquiry and many of the Catholic Church case studies investigated by the royal commission.

My new book, Still Standing, is our experience of witnessing the evidence of corruption, arrogance, cover-ups, lies and deception exposed through these two vital inquiries.

We witnessed Melbourne archbishop Denis Hart with a smirk on his face say “Better late than never” to Victorian committee member Georgie Crozier’s incredulous words that it took the church 18 years to apply to Rome for laicisation against the offender priest in question.

In the royal commission we heard evidence of ex-bishop Peter Connors saying to a distressed primary school principal who had just inherited a known (well known to the hierarchy) pedophile parish priest together with a recent victim complaint about the same priest: “Once a pedophile, always a pedophile.” And with these brush-off words, Connors offered no assistance.

Another debased example was ex-vicar general Hilton Deakin testifying that then Melbourne archbishop Sir Frank Little and his curia (assistant auxiliary bishops of Melbourne), including himself, all voted on moving or retiring pedophile priests under the pretence of ill health when in fact it was because of child sex offences.

Often the offenders forced into retiring were given the honorary title of emeritus pastor – bestowing on them status and a higher retirement pension.

This nation’s two inquiries have resulted in changed laws that have made Australia one of safest countries for children. The rape and sexual assault of children is a worldwide problem especially in the Catholic Church, as other countries are discovering. In Australia, the royal commission found that 61.4 per cent of complaints about religious organisations were against the Catholic Church; the next biggest religious offender was the Anglican Church with 14.8 per cent. Of the 8013 survivors who gave evidence to the royal commission it was found that each child suffered 2.2 years of sexual assaults. It is child sexual slavery on a grand scale.

The Catholic Church had one billion parishioners. I was one. We had no idea of the criminal cover-up orchestrated by our hierarchy – our children were the victim pool. It was the hierarchy of the priesthood and brotherhoods who received the complaints; it was they who failed to report or dismiss pedophile priests; it was they who recirculated offenders, allowing them to reoffend – sometimes, as in our case, for 50 years, causing damage to generations.

In May 2017 the unthinkable happened; Anthony, my beloved husband of 36 years, died suddenly after collapsing from a heart attack and sustaining a catastrophic head injury. He will be forever missed.

Late that year, my co-author Paul Kennedy and I made an ABC documentary called Undeniable to be aired nationally to coincide with the closing ceremony of the royal commission. We interviewed activists who had fought on various fronts to make the royal commission a reality. We needed to show, especially politicians, why the $4bn royal commission was necessary and why it was now necessary to implement its recommendations.

The following year I was asked by then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to be part of the national apology reference group. We collected opinions from survivors around Australia asking what they would like the prime minister to say in such an apology.

On October 22, 2018, I had the great honour of sitting on the floor of Parliament House in Canberra with Julia Gillard on one side and my daughter Katie on the other to hear the national apology. It hit a spot deep inside many of us, as the broken sobbing of one woman proved when her cries echoed through the parliamentary chamber. The national apology was a triumph for all victims; it was recognition of what victims had suffered as defenceless children at the mercy of bishops, clergy and other heartless people who cared nothing for them. The people who knowingly harboured child rapists were wrong, vile and criminal, and the apology proved it to the nation.

It should never have happened. It should have been stopped. It was necessary to pay respect and admit the truth of the many thousands of child sexual assaults that took place in trusted institutions and the damage and suffering it caused.

The carnage we experienced with our daughters must stop. Public knowledge and understanding are the way forward in the ongoing battle against pedophilia. It is every adult’s duty to be forever vigilant in protecting the children in their lives and beyond.

Chrissie Foster is the author of Hell on the Way to Heaven and Still Standing (Penguin Random House Australia) with Paul Kennedy. She was joint winner of the Australian Human Rights Medal 2018 with royal commissioner Peter McClellan and in 2019 was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to children, particularly as an advocate for those who have suffered sexual abuse.