Inquiry: Priest "Did Not Recall Mcalinden"

By Ian Kirkwood
Newcastle Herald
July 25, 2013

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1663186/inquiry-priest-did-not-recall-mcalinden/?cs=12

FATHER Brian Lucas began his second day in the witness box in Newcastle confirming he’d had to supply more documents about his involvement in dealing with paedophile priests to the Special Commission of Inquiry.

He finished the day by rejecting a suggestion from victims’ counsel Maria Gerace that his evidence was ‘‘not true’’.

Ms Gerace said the only thing Father Lucas could recall for the commission about serial paedophile the late Denis McAlinden – that his victims did not want to go to the police – was the one thing that would stop Father Lucas being charged with concealing a crime.

In between, the evidence traversed such diverse areas as the Congregation of the Servants of the Paraclete – a New Mexico-based ministry that specialises in ministering to troubled priests, including paedophiles – and the failure of a Catholic ethicist, Dr Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, to convince the Church to have paedophile allegations against priests automatically reported to police from as early as 1990.

Father Lucas, who helped the Church in NSW develop policies for responding to the sexual crimes of its clerics from the late 1980s, is a highly credentialled lawyer and the long-standing general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.

Documents and other evidence tendered to the commission indicate he played a leading role in efforts to discipline serial paedophile McAlinden in the early 1990s, but he has told the inquiry he has no recall of the man or of conversations with victims and Church authorities about him.

Challenging him about this, senior counsel assisting the commission Julia Lonergan asked Father Lucas why he could remember details about another priest he dealt with at the time, known as NP2, who, like McAlinden, was regarded as a difficult case.

Father Lucas said it was because he knew NP2 personally and had for many years.

Ms Gerace took Father Lucas through a ‘‘special issues’’ protocol that he and a psychologist colleague, Father John Usher, had produced in 1990 for bishops around Australia.

Ms Gerace said there was nothing in the protocol about reporting a ‘‘reasonable suspicion’’ of a crime to authorities, nor was there anything in it about the wishes of victims.

Father Lucas said it was put differently, saying ‘‘you must comply with the law’’, although it did not specify what the law was, because the law varied from state to state.

He said the wishes of Dr Tonti-Filippini – who believed such crimes should be reported regardless – ‘‘did not prevail’’ in the creation of the protocol, which was ‘‘pored over’’ by lawyers who believed it should be drafted in more general terms.

He agreed with Ms Gerace that the end result was a process that allowed the Church to deal with its paedophiles ‘‘secretly and discreetly’’.

He agreed ‘‘to some extent’’ that it helped the Church ‘‘minimise scandal’’.

Father Lucas was also asked about a March 1992 Centacare media release that said priests ‘‘suspected’’ of child sex offences would be stood down immediately and the matter put in the hands of civil authorities.

Ms Gerace said the statement was ‘‘not accurate’’ because the church did not at that stage automatically go to the police.

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There were groans from the audience when Father Lucas said that ‘‘implied in that is the willingness of the victims for that to happen’’.

Father Lucas argued the statement was accurate but said it would have been more accurate if there was a comma after the bit about reporting it to authorities and a phrase ‘‘except where victims didn’t want it’’ was added.

The hearing continues.