Broken Rites Australia - researching the Catholic cover-up

Catholic Church sex-abuse victims in the Newcastle region in Australia have been so successful in demanding justice that their local bishop is longing for early retirement. These victims have shattered the church's traditional cover-up of these crimes (posted 6 January 2011).

Marist Brothers are "dysfunctional", an ex-Brother says: In December 2010 a former Catholic Marist teaching brother, now living in Queensland — Bede Hampton, aged 62 — was jailed in New Zealand for committing sexual offences against boys in a New Zealand Catholic boarding school in the early 1970s. According to the judge's sentencing statement, Hampton claimed that the offending arose because he was living in a dysfunctional religious order and was ill-suited to religious life. The judge said this did not justify Hampton's crimes. Hampton left the Marist Brothers when he was 29. He has become an interior decorator based in Queensland (posted 17 December 2010).

An ex-altar boy sues church re Father Sultana: Broken Rites Australia is researching Father Joseph Sultana, who is mentioned in a civil lawsuit in Queensland, Australia. A former altar boy is tackling the Cairns Catholic Diocese, alleging abuse by Fr Sultana (updated 12 November 2010).

A Catholic priest, Father Dennis John Corrigan, has appeared in court in New South Wales, where he successfully pleaded not guilty to charges of having indecently assaulted a 12-year-old boy on two occasions in the late 1980s while Corrigan was ministering in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.

Mary MacKillop: The church's cover-up continues: Research by Broken Rites research has confirmed that Mary MacKillop (Australia's first saint, the co-founder of the Sisters of St Joseph) was punished by the church hierarchy after her nuns exposed a sexually-abusive priest, Father Ambrose Patrick Keating, in South Australia in 1870. In 2010, the church authorities are dodging this revelation (updated 21 October 2010).

A church-appointed investigator has confirmed that a Jesuit priest, Fr John Byrne, sexually abused a boy, aged 11, at Melbourne's Xavier College. Byrne previously taught at St Ignatius College, Riverview, in Sydney (posted 20 September 2010).

Brother Vincent Crawford in court: A Catholic religious brother, Vincent Crawford (a.k.a. Brother "Brendan" Crawford), of the Passionist Order, has appeared in court charged with sexual offences against a girl. The charges were withdrawn after the court was told that Crawford (aged 77 when charged) was medically unfit to undergo the court proceedings (posted 15 July 2010).

A victim's impact statement: This Broken Rites article includes a well-written impact statement, submitted to an Australian court by one victim, telling the judge how the church abuse damaged the victim's life. The impact statement is in the second half of our article, under the sub-heading "Impact Statement" (updated 22 March 2011).

On 1 May 2012, New South Wales police charged Catholic priest Father Finian Egan with alleged sexual abuse of four children in the Sydney region in the 1970s and '80s. Father Finian James Egan, who was aged 77 in 2012, belongs to the Broken Bay diocese, which covers parishes to the north of Sydney Harbour (including on the NSW central coast).

Archbishop Coleridge speaks - better late than never: After 36 years in the Catholic ministry, Canberra Archbishop Mark Coleridge has finally confessed that it took "people like me a tragically long time" to see the faces and hear the voices of sexual abuse survivors in the church (posted 24 May 2010).

A cover-up in Western Australia: Broken Rites has researched Father Michael Slattery who was given a church position by Archbishop Barry Hickey, despite the priest having a child-abuse conviction (updated 12 April 2010).

An "Anglican-Catholic" cover-up: Broken Rites tells the full story of Anglican priest Wilfred Edwin Dennis, who was jailed in 1970 for sexually abusing an altar boy. He continued as an Anglican priest but later left the mainstream Anglican Church to join a breakaway group, called the "Anglican Catholic Church". In April 2010, he was jailed again for assaulting two other boys. In February 2011, after more victims spoke to the police, his jail sentence was extended (updated 2 February 2011).

ANGLICAN case: Broken Rites has researched one of Australia’s most prominent Anglican priests — Father James Stirling Murray — who managed to survive complaints about him committing sex offences on vulnerable boys (posted 2 October 2009).

After a Melbourne jury found him guilty on child-sex charges, Christian Brother John Francis Coswello appealed and gained the right to a re-trial. In October 2010, a new jury returned a verdict of not guilty on these charges.

Tector: In 1994, Darren John Tector was jailed for sexual offences against boys while he was a teacher at a Catholic primary school (Our Lady of Lourdes) at Seven Hills, near Parramatta, west of Sydney. He was jailed again in 2007 (aged 41) for using the internet and a telephone to procure a child (a 12-year-old boy) for sexual activity (posted 13 March 2009).

Has the Catholic Church really learned lessons about "child protection"? On 4 October 2010 in Toowoomba (Queensland), a Catholic Church "child protection" officer (Gerard Vincent Byrnes) was jailed for at least eight years for sexually assaulting schoolgirls. The crimes occurred rrather recently, in 2007 and 2008. Despite complaints, the Catholic education system allowed Brynes to continue teaching until the police arrested him. (Article posted 4 October 2010.)

This article is not available

Eames: A Melbourne priest, Father Anthony Eames, was finally convicted after committing offences against young girls for many years (posted 22 September 2008).

Mackie: Police in Newcastle, New South Wales, began investigating allegations that a Catholic priest (Fr Gerard Mackie) showed an explicit image to seven-year-old children at a government school during a "religious education" lesson (posted 15 September 2008).

On 22 August 2008, New South Wales detectives charged an 81-year-old Catholic priest with a series of child sex offences, dating back almost 40 years. The priest was issued with a summons to appear in Wollongong Local Court on a later date.

The charges include two counts of buggery and 10 counts of indecent assault (that is, indecent touching).

The charges relate to the repeated sexual assault of a former altar boy at a parish in the city of Wollongong. Police allege the offences occurred over a period from 1969 to 1976, commencing when the victim was 10 years old.

Donovan: In May 2008 the Catholic Church's Professional Standards Office in New South Wales "accepted the veracity" of two complaints about Father Francis Donovan, a priest of the Redemptorist Fathers religious order. Two women, acting separately, had complained that Fr Frank Donovan molested them when they were young girls in the late 1970s in Maitland (posted 7 June 2008).

D'Cruz: A Catholic priest, Father Adelrick D'Cruz, 78, pleaded guilty in the Victorian County Court at Shepparton on 22 May 2008 to indecently assaulting a schoolgirl who came to his parish house for help (updated 1 June 2008).

Hughes Hospital chaplains can be a health hazard, a woman patient says (29th September 2007)

Blackfriars School: It is never too late to tell the police, these victims say (last updated 2nd August 2007)

Christian Brothers: This article, written for the Broken Rites website by a victim of the Christian Brothers, gives a victim's view of Catholic Church sex-abuse in Australia.

Here are some Anglican cases, previously reported in the Broken Rites Newsletter (list not complete). The following are all ordained priests.

In the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 12 December 1997, Marist Brother Francis Hesford pleaded guilty to having indecently assaulted two girls, aged 9 and 12, in the swimming pool at Assumption College boys' boarding school in Kilmore, Vic. He was sentenced to a 12-months good-behaviour bond.

By "MARY", a victim of Marist Brother Francis Hesford at Kilmore, Victoria, at the age of 9 in the 1970s

It is best described as a "shattered windscreen" effect. You notice the initial chip in the windscreen and it really angers you. This is the initial abuse.

The Brisbane Courier Mail (15 October 1998) has exposed the sexual abuse of orphan girls which occurred in the 1950s and '60s at Nazareth House, a Catholic home for the aged, in Wynnum North, Brisbane, conducted by the Sisters of Nazareth. The nuns kept teenage girls at the home as unpaid workers.

The Catholic Church in Australia has established a Professional Standards Office (also known as "Towards Healing") to handle (or mis-handle) complaints from the church's sex-abuse victims. This system operates throughout Australia (including country areas in Victoria), but it does not cover priests in Melbourne or its suburbs.