Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced Nov. 12 that a national
royal commission would investigate institutional responses to
allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia.
The commission will look at a wide array of public and private
institutions that serve youth, from schools and residential homes to the
Boy and Girl Scouts, but the abuse of minors in the Catholic church is
undeniably an impetus for the announcement.
The decision, taken at a meeting of the federal cabinet, has received
overwhelming public support; 95 percent of Australians approve of the
commission, according to a Herald-Nielsen opinion poll.
Pressure for a national royal commission has been mounting for years,
led by abuse victims and some sections of the Australian media. Child
sexual abuse is already the subject of an ongoing parliamentary inquiry
in the state of Victoria, and in early November another inquiry was
announced in the state of New South Wales.
Victims' advocates have warned that it may take up to 10 years to
complete, and that thousands of people may want to give evidence about
incidents of abuse that occurred as long ago as the 1930s. Up to half a
million Australian children were in care during the last half century.
Cardinal George Pell of Sydney provoked a furious backlash when he
suggested pressure for the royal commission had been provoked by a
one-sided media "smear" campaign against the Catholic church. He said
abuse by Catholic clergy had been singled out and exaggerated, but he
welcomed the royal commission as "an opportunity to clear the air, to
separate fact from fiction."
Speaking at a news conference the day after the commission was
announced, Pell said, "We are not interested in denying the extent of
misdoing in the Catholic church. We object to it being exaggerated. We
object to being described as the only cab on the rank."
In stark contrast, Australia's most senior Anglican bishop, Archbishop
Phillip Aspinall of Brisbane, enthusiastically endorsed the commission,
even revealing that he had lobbied for it 10 years ago.
Pell's ambivalence about the commission earned him criticism from other corners of Catholic Australia.
Retired Sydney Auxiliary Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, a former head of the
church's national professional standards committee and himself a victim
of child sexual abuse, described Pell as "an embarrassment to me and a
lot of good Catholic people," and said that his response to the royal
commission had been "a disaster for the Catholic church."
"He's not a team player, he never has been," Robinson said. "He's not
consulting with anyone else, he's simply doing his own thing. I
personally believe he's doing it very badly indeed and I think the other
Australian bishops, as one of the very first questions they need to
face, they've got to confront him and determine who it is that speaks in
their name and who doesn't."
Opposition leader Tony Abbott, Australia's most prominent lay Catholic
and a close associate of Pell's, also distanced himself from the
cardinal's remarks.
More embarrassing for Pell has been the response of leading child
protection expert Patrick Parkinson of the University of Sydney. The
bishops hired Parkinson to provide an independent assessment of its
national sexual abuse protocol, "Towards Healing," which was introduced
in 1996 and has since been twice revised.
At his press conference, Pell invoked Parkinson's endorsement of
"Towards Healing" as confirmation that the church had cleaned up its act
and that any inadequacies in dealing with abuse allegations were all in
the past.
However, the next day, Parkinson announced that he had withdrawn his
endorsement of "Towards Healing" because the church was still failing to
act against clergy who didn't comply.
He said he had reviewed "Towards Healing" in 2008 and 2009 and raised a
number of concerns with the Australian bishops, specifically in
relation to the activities of the Salesian order, which has been accused
of moving predatory priests offshore to Samoa, where they continued to
have contact with children. He said the bishops had suppressed his
report and failed to act on his recommendations.
In October, Parkinson also gave evidence to Victoria's state
parliamentary inquiry into sexual abuse that statistics for abuse
committed by Catholic clergy were six times higher than for all the
other churches combined, "and that's a conservative figure."
Two sets of events triggered the announcement of the national royal commission.
First were allegations of a cover-up of abuse by a priest of Armidale
diocese known for legal reasons as "Father F." On Oct. 19, Father F was
arrested and charged with 25 counts of child sexual abuse. He had been
removed from active ministry in 1992 after being interviewed by three
senior priests, but they failed to report his activities to police. They
deny they were involved in a cover-up. The Catholic church has
established its own internal inquiry into the matter, chaired by a
federal court judge.
Next came even more sensational allegations by a senior New South Wales
policeman who for more than a decade was at the forefront of
investigations into Catholic clerical abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle
diocese north of Sydney. In a letter to New South Wales premier Barry
O'Farrell, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox complained that his
investigations had been hindered by interference from within the New
South Wales police and by the Catholic church.
"I can testify from my own experience that the church covers up,
silences victims, hinders police investigations, alerts offenders,
destroys evidence and moves priests to protect the good name of the
church," he said.
Fox alleged he was removed from his investigation after he obtained an
explosive witness statement from a church insider alleging a high-level
cover-up of abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.
It has been alleged that abuse in Maitland-Newcastle has been covered
up by two successive bishops, Leo Clarke (who died in 2006) and Michael
Malone (who succeeded him in 1995), and three successive vicars general,
Msgr. Patrick Cotter (died 2007), Fr. Tom Brennan (died 2012), and the
man who is currently archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson.
Brennan was the first senior Australian Catholic clergyman to be
charged over covering up abuse, but he died before the matter went to
court.
The question now is what kind of royal commission this will be, how
long it will take and what its terms of references are going to be.
Gillard has given assurances that the details will be worked out in
consultation with organizations representing survivors of abuse, with
the churches, and all Australian states and territories.
Victims' advocates say the commission will need to be prepared to
pursue lines of inquiry overseas if necessary and that its success will
depend on its willingness to compel the production of documents and
witnesses including bishops and archbishops to give evidence under oath.
Pell said he would give evidence if called upon.