Catholic Church defends its handling of child abuse allegations

THE Catholic Church says a royal commission into child abuse is a chance to "clear out" doubts about the church.

THE Catholic Church says a royal commission into child abuse is a chance to "clear out" doubts about the church, and has defended its internal processes of dealing with abuse allegations.

“We do need this activity, the inquiry, at this stage, to make quite sure the right thing is being done, to clear out for once and for all any doubt about the church,” Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart said today.

“As I go around from parish to parish, I sense there is a great love for the church, a great love of priests, but a terrible scandal of the few who have offended so terribly,” he told ABC radio.

He said the church would “co-operate fully with the royal commission” announced last night by Julia Gillard.

Church spokesman Father Shane Mackinlay defended the Victorian and national responses to allegations of abuse by clergy, the Melbourne Response and Towards Healing, established in 1996 and 1997.

“While there are clearly some people who are not satisfied with the response that they get, there are a great many people who are satisfied,” he told The Australian.

He said it was also a “great misconception” to describe the Melbourne Response or Towards Healing as the church investigating itself.

He said they were primarily processes established “for situations where the police cannot undertake an investigation” for reasons including where an alleged offender has died, which was the case in between one third and a half of the cases.

Father MacKinlay said the processes were also established to give victims “an acknowledgement by the church that what happened to them is appalling and is rejected utterly”.

Victims advocates have condemned the Melbourne Response for referring no complaints to police in 16 years. Father Mackinlay said that of the 308 victims identified in its Facing the Truth document, one third were affected by deaths, 81 were cases where the complainant had already been to police, 18 went to the police after going to the Melbourne Response, “often with the assistance and encouragement of the Melbourne Response”, and 63 signed a formal declaration that despite the encouragement of the independent commissioner, they were not prepared to go to the police.

But in Sydney, lawyer Andrew Morrison, a senior member of the Liberal Party, said the Catholic Church could not be “trusted” to inquire into abuse by clergy.

Mr Morrison said the church-appointed inquiry into the case of the defrocked priest known as Father F, chaired by former federal court judge Tony Whitlam, was “an inquiry into a failed previous inquiry in 1993, and that itself speaks volumes about the process”.

He said Mr Whitlam, while “very able and honourable”, had no power to compel the attendance of witnesses, or the production of documents, or to compel witnesses to answer questions.

He said senior clergy would be advised by leading lawyers “not to say anything to anybody” and the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, had refused to produce records in which Father F admitted to “sucking the dicks” of five young boys.

He said why a prosecution did not proceed in the 1980s was a matter “of grave concern”.

Mr Morrison said the Catholic Church had “never successfully investigated itself”, or referred crimes by clergy to police.

“You cannot trust the internal processes,” he said. “They are not pursued in the way they ought to be.”

In Melbourne, lawyer Josh Bornstein said the strategies employed by the Catholic Church, including internal investigation, were akin to multinational corporations seeking to evade civil or criminal liability.

“And I don't get that, because we are dealing with a church, or churches,” he said.

He said these strategies included a public relations campaign to minimise the allegations, asset protection involving no legal entities to sue, and attempts to circumvent prosecution and an internal inquiry process “which in my view is cynically geared rather than genuine”.