THE Catholic Church has been accused of tokenism after defrocking
notorious Hunter paedophile priest John Denham while failing to defrock
other clergy child sex abusers.
"They get rid of the worst of the
worst to make it look like they're cleaning up their act, but they're
picking and choosing," said a Newcastle victim of Vince Ryan, who was
jailed after sexually abusing 35 boys between 1972 and 1991, and
released last year.
"I asked [Bishop] Michael Malone to defrock
Ryan back when he was jailed [in 1996] and Malone said they wouldn't. So
why did they do it with Denham?"
Maitland-Newcastle Bishop
William Wright's announcement on Sunday that Pope Benedict laicised
(defrocked) Denham in May, after a recommendation from former Bishop
Malone, met with a mixed response from victims of Hunter paedophile
priests and their families.
Several people contacted by the
Newcastle Herald agreed with Bishop Malone's argument that the church
was responsible for its paedophile priests, while defrocking made them
the community's responsibility.
In the case of Vince Ryan, the
church and the priest signed a formal document in which he agreed not to
return to the Hunter region.
The condition was at the request of some
Ryan victims.
The church agreed to support the priest during his lengthy
parole in Sydney.
His Newcastle victim said it was offensive that
someone like Ryan could still call himself a priest, despite the church
stripping him of his right to act as a priest.
Denis McAlinden,
who the church tried to secretly defrock in 1995 over sexual abuse of
young girls, continued to act as a priest despite being stripped of his
right to do so in 1993.
Peter Gogarty, a victim of Jim Fletcher,
called the defrocking of Denham "tokenism", and his sexual abuser's
right to call himself "Father" until the day he died a repeat of the
abuse.
"He's buried as Father Jim Fletcher. That's what's wrong
with the argument put forward in the Vince Ryan case. He can still call
himself a priest," he said.
It is extremely rare for the church in Australia to defrock clergy sex abusers.