AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
A retired Catholic bishop says he’ll be “forever sorry” for the way he responded to former residents of an infamous central Queensland orphanage whose shocking stories of abuse were laid bare at a royal commission.
Retired Rockhampton bishop Brian Heenan told the sex abuse royal commission he felt “a terrible sense of shame and disgrace” at what happened to children at the St Joseph’s Neerkol orphanage, near Rockhampton.
Former orphanage residents told a public hearing last week of suffering regular sexual abuse by priests, and of frequent sadistic beatings and other punishments meted out by nuns.
Bishop Heenan conceded before the commission on Friday that he failed to adequately respond to victims’ allegations when they first emerged in the 1990s.
On Monday he addressed the victims directly in a statement outside the Rockhampton court house, where the public hearing is being held.
“I want to apologise again for the harm and the suffering of former St Joseph’s Orphanage residents at the hands of the Catholic Church, priests and sisters and staff,” he said.
“I also apologise for the way in which I responded to these victims.
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