AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
April 26, 2020
By Karen Percy
Key points
– The Catholic Church had long denied Stephanie Piper was abused by Father Gerard Mulvale in the 1970s
– The Archbishop of Melbourne apologised to Mrs Piper after a review by the former chief justice of the Victorian Supreme Court
– The 95-year-old mother’s lawyers said the apology is too little and too late
It’s taken 26 years, reams of legal documents and many tears, but Eileen Piper has done what she set out to do — cleared the name of her daughter, Stephanie, who was abused by a Catholic priest in the 1970s.
In December, Mrs Piper, 95, received a written apology from Melbourne’s Archbishop, Peter Comensoli, and the Pallotine order of priests which, for years, had denied the crimes of Father Gerard Mulvale.
“I am relieved — but I’m still hurt,” she told the ABC.
[PHOTO: Stephanie Piper a week before she died, in 1994.]
In the 1970s, Mrs Piper was an active parishioner at St Christopher’s in the Melbourne suburb of Syndal, now part of Glen Waverley.
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