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Royal Commission Will Investigate the “why” Question

By Ian Kirkwood
Newcastle Herald
September 8, 2016

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/4151188/royal-commission-will-investigate-the-why-question/

THE chairman of the Royal Commisison, Justice Peter McClellan, says one of his inquiry’s final case studies will look at “why this has happened” in the Catholic Church and elsewhere.

Justice McClellan was questioning the current head of the Marist Brothers in Australia, Brother Peter Carroll.

Justice McClellan said: “You may not know, but one of the final hearings of the commission will look at the question of ‘why’, in an endeavour to understand in the Australian context why this has happened, and not just in the Catholic Church, we hasten to add, but in other parts of societ, which of course the commission has discussed in its various case studies.”

The pre-lunch session of this final day of Maitland-Newcastle Catholic hearings began with Brother Peter reading a prepared statement apologising to the family of Andrew Nash, who took his own life at the age of 13 in 1974

Brother Peter said “all the evidence indicates” that Andrew Nash was sexually abused, and that this evidence also pointed to him taking his own life.

“I acknowledge the pain carried by the Nash family for the past 40 years,” Brother Peter said.

“I express my admiration for the way they have summoned the courage to give evidence this week. Andrew’s family has honoured his memory and expressed their enduring love and grief.”

He said the idea that Andrew’s death was a prank gone wrong was “completely wrong and hurtful” and “must be totally rejected”.

“Such comments have immeasurably compounded the family’s pain and absence of loss.”

Brother Carroll agreed he entered the Marist Brothers in 1977 at the age of 18 and had risen through various teaching and headmaster positions until becoming the provincial – or head – of the Marist Brothers for all of Australia in 2015.

He said he had not been directly involved in handling the claims of any of the victims of the three brothers – Dominic, Patrick and Romuald – who were the subject of this case study.

He agreed with counsel assisting the commission, Stephen Free, that he recognised his role as provincial meant a responsibility to answer for the organisation and its past actions.

Taken first to Brother Romuald, the provincial acknowledged that he left the order in 1978 and was charged with offences in 2012. He said the Marist Brothers had received 21 complaints about Romuald.

He accepted there was evidence going back as far as 1959 when reports were made to brothers Florentine and Fingal about Romuald at Marist Brothers Maitland.

He accepted evidence that suggested a complaint was made to a brother Kevin in 1967 regarding Romuald at the Sydney suburb at Pagewood, and that the brother was moved away from there at the end of that year.

Brother Peter agreed that Romuald’s work history of various short stints at schools could be seen as unusual but he said that he, himself, had moved around a lot.

Asked about this knowledge of the order’s historical records, Brother Peter said: “There doesn’t seem to much evidence in them of anything explicit of sexual abuse. I mean, certainly, that term is never used.”

Asked about Brother Christopher’s evidence as to not recalling complaints that others said they made to him, Brother Peter agreed with Mr Free that there did not seem to be written Marist records of these complaints have occurred.

Brother Peter said: “Yes, I think there was a very similar episode in the Canberra case study where a principal had an accusation from a parent, the principal went to the brother and the brother denied it and that was it. So, in other words, the brother was given the benefit of the doubt and the brother was listened to and the, I suppose, the parent and the student were discounted.”

He was then taken to a more recent statement, an email from his predecessor Brother Geoffrey Crowe to the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Bill Wright, in which he had said: “Up until two weeks ago we had known of claims of physical abuse against this man [Brother Romuald] but not sexual abuse. We have no knowledge of his response to the claims.”

Asked if the statement was accurate, he said: “No, that’s incorrect.”

Brother Peter confirmed he had taken over from Brother Dominic as the principal of St Peter Clavier college at Riverview in 1997. Asked if he had been aware of allegations of sexual abuse against Brother Dominic at the time, he said: I had heard that there was an interaction with a student. The way it was described to me – and I don’t recall who described it to me – but the impression I had was that he had , my memory is that he had rubbed a boy on the back under his shirt, on the bare flesh, but having read the documentation, it’s obviously it was much more than that, but I did not know that at the time.”

After accepting that allegations against Brother Dominic had not been properly investigated, Brother Peter was taken to a 1996 complaint about Dominic rubbing a boy indecently and telling him “you’ll soon be getting hair on your balls”: this complaint was investigated by the Catholic Education Office in Brisbane.

Brother Peter said that in schools operated by the various Catholic dioceses, complaints were handled by the Catholic Education Office, whereas Marist protocols and policies applied in schools run by the Marist Brothers.

Commenting on Brother Michael Hill’s lack of knowledge about the 1996 complaint against brother Dominic, he said: “That does seem unusual. I mean this whole incident shows a maturing in the processes being used because at least there was an investigation but I think even in 1996, it was obvious that it wasn’t probably as good as we would do today.”

Brother Peter said that he, himself, had been misled into believing that Brother Dominic did not take up his appointment as principal of the Hamilton school because of health reasons.

He had checked Dominic’s medical records and found he had undergone an operation in 1976 to remove his pituitary gland and had a large scar on his head.

He now accepted that the “decisive factor” was Bishop Michael Malone’s concerns about Dominic’s “inappropriate conduct”.

“Are you surprised that a minute generated, particularly this one generated in 1996, should have been misleading in this way?”

“I am surprised by that. I would have thought that there would be – especially with such a clear recollection of what happened – that it would have been noted in the minutes, yes.”

Mr Free said Brother Michael had by this stage concluded that Dominic should not be allowed to have unsupervised access to children yet he also attempted to send him to Fiji where he would have contact with children.

Brother Peter said he supposed it was a matter of “looking for something tht he could productively do”.

Mr Free said the minutes showed that in 1997 Brother Michael was still considering appointing Dominic to either Ashgrove or Dundas.

Brother Peter said he thought the roles were non-teaching but it was still “hard to reconcile”.

He said there was nothing in the Marist Brothers records to say that Dominic should not be allowed unsupervised access to children and that even in 2005, Dominic was appointed assistant community leader and personal assistant to the headmaster at Ashgrove.

“Yes, it seems quite unusual that he [the provincial] made that appointment, given the background and the information and the conclusions that had been drawn by a previous provincial,” Brother Peter said.

Mr Free noted that Dominic was charged in 2013 with 10 counts of indecent assault. Brother Peter agreed Dominic had generated nine complaints of abuse between the 1960s and 1990s at Hamilton, Casino and Riverview.

Mr Free then moved to Brother Patrick, who by the 1990s was living in a community of retired brothers at Ashgrove. Brother Peter said he also lived at Ashgrove between 1990 and 1996.

Brother Peter said he only heard at this royal commission hearing about an alleged 1992 incident in which two boys had hidden in the bush to get away from Brother Patrick, who had been touching them in class.

He said he had not been aware of any need to supervise Patrick.

He said the royal commission was the first time he heard about Patrick, as headmaster at Eastwood, being punched by the father of one of his alleged victims in 1980.

There were other complaints about Patrick, including one in which a previous provincial, Brother Alexis, had assured a complainant that the brother did not pose a risk to children.

Asked whether there was any basis to that assurance, Brother Peter said: “Well, he was living on the grounds of a boarding school and he was doing some tutoring, at least with students. I know that students from my dormitory would to him at night for some tutoring in mathematics, so it doesn’t sound as though you could preclude him from having access to children.”

Mr Free then showed Brother Peter correspondence from the Catholic Church’s insurance arm that said the insurer was considering denying indemnity for anything Patrick did after 1991 because the Marist Brothers were aware from this time of his propensity to abuse children.

He agreed the Marist Brothers tended to categorise types of offence, saying: “It seemd to be that if it was – this whole issue about genitals, touching genitals, then it was serious but if it was something other, it wasn’t seen to be.”

He agreed there was a tendency to try to minimise the severity of what was going on and that it was easier to minimise if if you were unaware of the details.

He was then taken to a letter written by a victim, CNJ, who told Andrew Nash’s mother, Audrey Nash: “When I get down on myself for not having spoken up at the time, I have to remind myself of the enormity of a child facing off with a Marist Brother . Up until that time I was taught that a brother nun or priest was God’s representative on earth, so when God’s agent sticks his hand down your pants, life gets seriously confused.”

Brother Peter then said the Marist Brothers were undertaking a research project to try to understand what went on, looking at the profiles of brothers who were abusers, and other related subjects.

Questioned by the commission’s chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, about “clericalism”, Brother Peter said there had been a tendency to put clerics and religious “on a pedestal”.

Justice McClellan said he was pleased to see the Marist Brothers undertake their study, and he said it would inevitably raise the question of “why” such things happened.

When Justice McClellan raised celibacy, Brother Peter said: “. . . it would have to be one of the issues. Having said that, though, one of the differences between priesthood as it is now and religious life is that celibacy is probably a constituent element of religious life is that celibacy is probably a constituent element of religious life because of the community dimension, where as with the priesthood there have been – there are married priests, so celibacy is not necessarily central to their calling and their vocation.”

The hearing will resume at 2pm.

 

 

 

 

 




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