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Senior Wollongong Catholic church figures called up for evidence
By Kate Mcilwain
A number of senior church figures linked to Wollongong have been called to give evidence at the royal commission, as the commissioners focus on the extent of child sexual abuse in the church over the past seven decades. The list of more than 60 witnesses in the three week hearing, which began on Monday, includes respected canon lawyer and former chancellor of the Diocese of Wollongong Moya Hanlon. Sister Hanlon appeared at the hearing into former Wollongong priest John Gerard Nestor. Nestor’s conviction and jail sentence for the indecent assault of a 15-year-old altar boy was overturned in in 1997; he was thrown out of the church in 2008 after more allegations of abuse emerged. Sister Hanlon is listed among a panel of three other canon lawyers. Former Wollongong CatholicCare director Kathleen McCormack is listed as the 22nd witness for this public hearing, appearing in her role as the Australian member of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Current Wollongong CatholicCare director Michael Austin will appear towards the end of the hearing. While a number of diocese heads – including the bishops of Darwin, Parramatta, Broome, and the archbishops of Brisbane, Canberra and Gouburn, Hobart, Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Adelaide – Wollongong Bishop Peter Ingham is not on the witness list. This is the 50th public hearing of the four-year-long royal commission and it is the 16th - and final – dealing with abuse in the Catholic Church. On Monday, the commission revealed a set of world-first data which showed more than one in nine Wollongong priests were alleged child molesters between 1950 and 2010. In her open address of the hearing, counsel assisting the commissioner Gail Furness named the Diocese of Wollongong was listed as one of the five areas with the highest proportion of priests who were alleged child sex abusers. The data showed Wollongong’s history of abuse began in the 1960s, when 11.2 per cent of priests were alleged to be perpetrators. By the 1980s, 14.1 per cent of priests in Wollongong diocese were the subject of a child abuse allegations, while in the 1990s it dropped back to 11.3 per cent. In the 2000s it was lower (but still comparably high) at 9.2 per cent. The CEO of the church’s Truth Justice and Healing Council Francis Sullivan responded to the data with tears in his eyes, telling commissioner the data “undermines the image and credibility of the priesthood”. “As Catholics we hang our heads in shame,” he said
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