No Check on Transferred Priests

The Sky News
December 16, 2013

http://www.skynews.com.au/topstories/article.aspx?id=934577




There is no formal check on a priest's reputation when he is transferred from one diocese to another, an inquiry into child sex abuse has been told.

The Catholic Bishop of Lismore, Dr Geoffrey Jarrett, said normal legal checks were carried out, such as the working with children check, and professional standards protocols were applied.

But there were no specific reputation checks comparable to reference checks for other jobs, he said.

He was responding to questioning from Justice Peter McClellan, chair of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is examining the church's Towards Healing process for dealing with abuse claims.

Dr Jarrett is the bishop in the diocese where Jennifer Ingham, now 51, was abused by Father Paul Brown between 1978 and 1982 when she was a teenager.

Fr Brown was removed from active ministry as parish priest in 1986 because of a longstanding alcohol problem, but that wouldn't be included on the diocesan clerical register, the commission heard.

Dr Jarrett said the information would be in the priest's personnel file.

'Things that are against the reputation of a priest are not necessarily entered in (the register),' he said.

Justice McClellan asked whether priests talked about each other, as colleagues did in any other professions, and whether someone like Fr Brown would have been discussed.

'Many priests would be in contact with other priests, they talk a lot on pastoral matters and yes, we talk about each other,' Dr Jarrett said.

But 'out of discretion, priests would not indulge in gossip about things that were damaging to a priest's reputation', such as sex abuse claims.

'Bishops do speak about these things in regard to priests ... (a bishop) is not going to allow a priest who he knows to have offended in this way (work in his diocese),' he said.

Dr Jarrett also said Rome was not involved in moving priest from one place to another.

The hearing continues.