AUSTRALIA
WA Today
Richard Ackland
Sydney Morning Herald columnist
Father Brian Lucas approaches his work on behalf of the Catholic Church with the steady certainty that he is right, that proper procedures have been followed and that those in authority are untouchable.
At least that’s the way he presents himself. The smiling smoothness, the unctuous tones, the baffling semantics.
Thursday was the last day of public hearings for the special commission of inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, to give it its official name.
Father Lucas, the local Mr Fix-It, of the Catholic Church, was one of the star witnesses. You’ll remember he had the job, as he unfortunately expressed it, to ”seduce” paedophile priests to resign.
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At one stage, he had about 35 priests in his ”seduction” program, of whom more than 10 admitted to the allegations against them.
Essentially part of the church has been engaged in a large-scale cover-up of criminality. Of course, it’s dressed up in the usual subterfuge: looking after the interests of the victims, internal processes working their magic, sanctity of the confessional, uncertainty as to who is responsible, and the daddy of them all – shifting and moving priests known to have offended to new parishes and different jurisdictions.
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