AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher
A Sydney woman (who will be referred to by Broken Rites as “Mandy”) has revealed that a Catholic priest (Father Kevin Cox) sexually abused her for six years from the age of eleven. Furthermore, the sexual abuse resulted in a pregnancy at age 17 — and then the priest paid for an abortion.
After these six years, Father Cox reluctantly apologised to the family for his sexual abuse of the girl. He also reluctantly admitted the sexual abuse to his bishop. However, the diocese granted him a transfer to another parish and allowed him to continue working as a priest for the next 15 years, until Mandy finally reported the sexual abuse to the police when she was nearly 32.
After the police charged Father Cox in court with his earliest sexual crimes against the child (at the age of 11 to 13), his supporters in the church sprang to his defence. After a jury convicted him of these crimes, church leaders and priests wrote “good-character” references for him, asking the court for a lenient sentence. A judge gave Cox a part-time jail sentence but church lawyers appealed to a higher court against the criminal conviction and won an acquittal for the priest.
Privately, a church leader apologised to Mandy’s mother, acknowledging that the priest had broken his priestly vows in doing what he did to Mandy.
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