Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse: Archbishop Refused to Apologise to Mother of Teen Victim

By Ian Paterson
Daily Telegraph
February 23, 2017

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/national/royal-commission-into-child-sex-abuse-archbishop-refused-to-apologise-to-mother-of-teen-victim/news-story/23ba2addd552de7e7ebaea058d24c9bc

A HEARTLESS archbishop has refused to apologise to a 92-year-old mother for the sexual abuse a priest inflicted on her then teenage daughter, who later committed suicide.

The Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart yesterday fronted the royal commission into child sex abuse to issue a series of apologies for the Catholic Church’s handling of a “tsunami” of cases but refused to even acknowledge that Eileen Piper’s daughter Stephanie had been sexually assaulted over several years by a disgraced former priest.

Ms Piper took her own life in Melbourne in 1994 after ­allegedly suffering sexual abuse between the ages of 15 and 18 when in a youth group run by Father Gerard Mulvale.

Archbishop Denis Hart arrives at the Royal Commission. Picture: Mark Evans

After 23 years, her mother is still battling with the Melbourne archdiocese, which ­refuses to acknowledge the abuse of her daughter.

Mulvale, the priest who ­allegedly raped Stephanie during her late teens, was sentenced to three years jail in 1995 for indecently assaulting two teenage boys who were in the same youth group.

“I would just tell him to get down off his high horse and just stand in front of me and look me in the eye and just say ‘I am so sorry for what has happened’ — but he can’t do it and I want them to do it,” Mrs Piper said yesterday.

“That is all I came for. If I get an apology it will be a big help and it will be good for Stephanie because they branded her a villain.

Eileen Piper, 92, whose daughter committed suicide. Picture: Mark Evans

“They have to right the wrongs, and I hope they do.”

Mrs Piper’s lawyer Judy Courtin said her client deserved more than an apology. “What Eileen deserves, and has a right to, is proper and ­adequate compensation,” Ms Courtin said. “If Stephanie was alive today she would be entitled to compensation. Sadly and tragically she is not.”

The nation’s Catholic archbishops yesterday publicly apologised for the church’s failure to stop a “tsunami” of child sexual abuse in what they said was a “catastrophic” failure of the church’s leadership.