AUSTRALIA
MN News Today
In my five years as Bishop of the Diocese, this is the second commission of inquiry before which I have appeared. There is a very considerable difference in scope between the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (‘Royal Commission’) and 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.
BISHOP BILL WRIGHT PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 07, 2016
Nevertheless there are haunting similarities for me, inasmuch as I am once again called upon to bear witness to a terrible and shameful chapter in the history of this Diocese. I am called to account for how the Diocese meets its obligations to provide support to those who remain affected today by their abuse, and called to demonstrate how we are committed to ensuring that what happened in the past cannot happen again today.
To bear witness to this sad and terrible history I must first acknowledge the facts as I know them. I acknowledge that:
* Ryan is a priest incardinated to the Diocese who committed multiple acts of sexual abuse against innocent boys beginning as early as 1972;
* Ryan was a sexual predator who used his status as a priest and the power that gave him to gain access to boys, to convince their parents and other responsible adults that he was safe, and to conceal his abuse;
* As early as 1974 deceased priest Mons. Cotter was told something of Ryan’s abusing and he abjectly failed to do anything meaningful to protect the children who should have been his primary concern;
* In 1975, Mons. Cotter responded to a further report and promptly removed Ryan from ministry and sent him for treatment, but these acts were vitiated by subsequent failures to monitor or check whether Ryan had received any meaningful treatment;
* There is some evidence that deceased priest Vincent Casey was told something of Ryan’s prior abusing. There is also evidence suggesting that Bishop Leo Clarke may have known of Ryan’s abuse. Before his death, Bishop Clarke denied knowledge of Ryan’s history, but if he were aware of what had occurred, then he failed to make further enquiries and subsequently placed Ryan in positions of responsibility, with access to children, across the Diocese for a further two decades;
* Some of those men who were harmed as boys have managed to live stable and fulfilling lives, others have struggled to simply remain alive and continue to battle their demons on a daily basis. We also acknowledge that some of those who were abused have also taken their own lives;
* The attitudes held by some in the Diocese put the perceived good of the Church before the safety of a child and this was fundamental to Ryan’s being able to continue to abuse for over 20 years; and
* The harm inflicted by Ryan may have been aggravated by the Diocese when certain victims sought redress for their harm through a contested court process.
As Bishop I humbly offer an unreserved apology on behalf of the Diocese to all those men who have suffered and continue to suffer as a consequence of Ryan’s abuse and the actions and omissions of members of the Diocese. Through those failures and omissions, the Diocese failed to act according to the Gospel. I apologise to the parents and siblings of those boys whose innocence was stolen by an evil presence who was allowed to remain amongst us by flawed and failed leaders. I apologise to the spouses and children of those men for any shadows that reach out from the past to affect your lives together today.
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