Vincentian Congregation leader, Fr Greg Cooney, yesterday apologised for "any harm that comes to anyone while they have been under our care." "I am deeply sorry for any harm that comes to anyone while they have been under our care," Fr Cooney said according to The Sydney Morning Herald report.
"It affects me very deeply, these things are not supposed to happen. As far as the Vincentians are concerned we are totally committed to the protection of young people and we have worked cooperatively with authorities to ensure this happens. I spent 20 years of my life involved in the formation of priests and honestly we did the best we could to ensure these things did not happen."
Three of the order's former clergy have been arrested during a current police investigation, including former college president Peter Dwyer, former school captain and chaplain Brian Spillane, and dormitory supervisor John Gaven, now working as a social worker for the order among HIV infected men.
Another former lay teacher has already served time for sexual abuse committed at the school in 1986, while victims spoke to the Herald outlining abuse at the hands of two other Vincentians.
One of them, Br Murray Wilson, died from gas inhalation on a visit to St Stanislaus' after he was moved to NSW in 1977. In 1993 allegations of abuse surfaced relating to his time as a teacher at another Vincentian school in Bendigo, Victoria.
Three pupils accused a former priest at the school, Guy Hartcher, of assaulting them during the 1970s. Mr Hartcher was subsequently charged with indecently assaulting two of them. But a committal hearing in Bathurst in 1996 found there was not enough evidence to go to trial on one matter while he was acquitted on the other in the Downing Centre in 1997.
Fr Cooney defended the order's handling of the complaints, saying that all complaints were referred to police, and in the case of Spillane a report had been referred to the NSW Ombudsman.
He said the Order first became aware of abuse allegations in 1994.
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(Source: CNA)