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  Victims Reject Apology

By Barney Zwartz
The Age
July 4, 2010

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/victims-reject-apology-20100704-zvtg.html

AS CATHOLICS around Melbourne yesterday heard of the church's deep shame at the crimes of abusive priests and its desire to make amends, victims dismissed the apology as hollow words and said the church was doing less, not more.

In a pastoral letter on sexual abuse delivered to every Catholic church, Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart (below) again apologised to victims, acknowledging that they had been betrayed and the church had not always responded properly. He spoke of "a crisis of faith".

But victims who spoke to The Age complained that the church punished those who made difficulties or spoke to the media, and was arbitrary in how it helped victims.

Helen Last, an advocate who represents 27 victims of abuse, said they did not accept the apology and called for the church to open its files to police.

Ms Last, who once worked with victims for the Melbourne archdiocese, said Archbishop Hart had merely rehashed an apology given by then Archbishop George Pell in the 1990s, and had left intact the flawed Melbourne Response system introduced in 1996.

"There's 14 years of files that need to be opened, and see how investigations were carried out and who is named as knowing about it."

Victims yesterday said they had been told that the church felt too many people were now receiving aid, and from the new financial year, which began on Thursday, assistance would be cut, including food and pharmaceuticals.

Noreen Wood, whose account of being raped by a Jesuit priest while in hospital in 1978 appeared in The Age on June 1, received a one-line letter the next week saying she would get no more food vouchers.

Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart apologises at St Patrick's Cathedral for the catholic churche's sexual abuse.
Photo by Neil Bennett

She said she had been told the church would no longer provide a social worker, a decision made by archdiocese legal and business advisers.

"How would they know what I need? What gives business people the right to make medical decisions about victims? Perpetrators don't have to worry about food, housing or medical needs, but I've still got no lights in the kitchen and I can no longer work because of an immune disorder which is exacerbated by stress."

Former nun Catherine Arthur received compensation for sexual abuse by a priest while in hospital, but has rejected an offer of $15,000 compensation for repeated abuse by another priest when she was nine.

In what she interprets as an attempt to pressure her, her solicitor received a letter last month offering her a pastoral visit from Archbishop Hart - but only if she accepted the non-negotiable offer.

Ms Arthur, 71 and in frail health, says she was offered vastly less than another victim of the same priest.

Survivors of Clergy Abuse Australia spokeswoman Nicky Davis said the real audience Archbishop Hart's letter aimed to reach was ordinary Catholics, to halt the steady decline in the pews.

If the intention were to help victims there would be specific proposals, rather than "a hodgepodge of familiar Catholic Church tactics including distraction, minimisation and excuses. It is both insulting and distressing for victims desperate to see a genuine intention by the Catholic Church to do the right thing," she said.

Broken Rites founder Chris McIsaac said Melbourne parishioners might well need the sympathy of their archbishop, but the sex abuse issue had been minimised and the truth withheld.

 
 

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