Senior Writer
Sydney
THE child abuse royal commission has slammed former Sydney archbishop George Pell, finding that he placed the church’s financial interests above his obligation to a victim of childhood sexual abuse as part of an aggressive legal strategy to protect the assets of the Sydney archdiocese.
The royal commission reported yesterday on three case studies, including that of solicitor John Ellis, who it found was denied justice and compassion by the Archdiocese of Sydney, which vigorously defended his compensation claim despite its own assessor’s conclusion he was telling the truth.
Mr Ellis was sexually assaulted by Father Aidan Duggan for five years between 1974 and 1979, when he was an altar boy. The abuse began when Mr Ellis was 13 years old. When he finally disclosed the abuse and, in 2002, took part in the church’s Towards Healingprocess, set up to offer pastoral care and reparation to victims, the church fundamentally failed to comply with the principles of its own policy.
Cardinal Pell initially dismissed Mr Ellis’s complaint, saying: “I do not see that there is anything the archdiocese can do.”
Negotiations between Mr Ellis, who continued to push for justice, and the archdiocese subsequently collapsed after Mr Ellis, a former partner at a Sydney law firm, was offered $25,000 by the church.
The royal commission agreed yesterday that Cardinal Pell had failed to act fairly from a Christian point of view during the course of litigation launched by Mr Ellis, which ultimately failed. Solicitors for the archdiocese and Cardinal Pell disputed that Father Duggan had sexually abused Mr Ellis.
The royal commission’s report concluded “the Archdiocese contrived an outcome that would allow them to maintain the non-admission of Mr Ellis’s abuse”.
“The archdiocese accepted the advice of its lawyers to vigorously defend Mr Ellis’s claim,” it said. “One reason Cardinal Pell decided to accept this advice was to encourage other prospective plaintiffs not to litigate claims of child sexual abuse against the church.” Cardinal Pell, now based in Rome as the Vatican’s Economy Minister, in evidence to the royal commission in March last year admitted the church had not dealt fairly with Mr Ellis. He said in his evidence he regretted the way the litigation was handled and had been motivated by a desire to protect the church’s trustees, who control its wealth. Cardinal Pell ultimately apologised to Mr Ellis during the hearings.
The church did not pursue Mr Ellis for costs of more than $500 million after the litigation.
The royal commission also handed down a report yesterday that examined how the Towards Healing protocol responded to four other cases, including that of Joan Isaacs, who was sexually abused by Brisbane priest Francis Edward Derriman in the late 1960s.
The commissioners found Ms Isaacs was required “not to make disparaging remarks or comments” about the church authority as part of a settlement process, inconsistent with church principles.
The case of a Toowoomba school whose principal, Terence Hayes, in 2007 failed to pass on to police allegations of sexual abuse against a teacher, Gerard Vincent Byrnes, serving 10 years for abusing 13 girls, was also reported on.
The Catholic Church’s professional standards arm said it was carefully examining the reports.
No comments:
Post a Comment