Catholic Order Sued for Alleged Abuse

By Dan Box
The Australian
September 16, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/catholic-order-sued-for-alleged-abuse/story-e6frg6nf-1226719610711

[with video]

FIVE men are taking legal action against a Sydney-based Catholic order alleging they were abused as schoolboys by a priest who remains with the organisation despite church leaders having known for decades about similar allegations against him.

The alleged victims of the priest, who has not been convicted of any offence, say they are concerned about his role managing the order's archives and that he may have access to children.

The national royal commission into child abuse, which begins hearing public evidence today, will rely heavily on documents supplied by the Catholic Church, having issued it with about 40 separate notices to produce such files.

Many of the former schoolboys said they had confidence to begin legal proceedings only after the royal commission was announced and hoped it would help end a culture of silence.

"Just (to have) some peace of mind, just some knowledge that something happened to me and people are listening, that the church will acknowledge that something did happen and they're not going to let it happen again," one alleged victim said.

The five were students at Chevalier College, a boarding school run by the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart (MSC) in the southern highlands of NSW, during the 1980s.

During this time, 12 students at the school gave statements to NSW police claiming they had been sexually abused by the priest, although none of these claims ultimately resulted in a conviction.

Jason Parkinson, a principal with Porters Lawyers, which is mounting the legal action against the MSC, said the five men were part of a generation now in their 40s and 50s who only now felt able to confront their alleged childhood abuse.

In 2008, the NSW Victims Compensation Tribunal awarded one of the priest's alleged victims $25,000, ruling that it was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that the incidents occurred.

MSC Provincial superior John Mulrooney said the priest was stood down from his teaching position after the allegations were made against him. He no longer served publicly as a priest and "basically works alone" in the order's archives in eastern Sydney.

"No authority, including the police or the Victims Compensation Tribunal, have ever indicated that we dealt with the allegations against (the priest) in the 1980s other than entirely appropriately," Father Mulrooney said.

He did not respond to questions about whether the priest continues to have access to children, although in a 2008 interview the priest said he "will be caring for 150 youths who will be staying with us" during that year's World Youth Day.

Today's royal commission hearing in Sydney will investigate how several NSW government departments responded to unrelated allegations against a pedophile former scoutmaster and Catholic Church employee during the 1990s.

Steven Larkins, who is serving a 15-month jail sentence for fraud and possessing child pornography, previously led the Hunter Aboriginal Children's Services, with responsibility for some of the state's most vulnerable children.

Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the body established by the Catholic Church to liaise with the royal commission, said he welcomed today's hearing.

"It is only when the full truth is revealed, justice is achieved for victims, reparation is made, sincere and appropriate apologies are offered and accepted, that healing can start," he said.