(AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, New South Wales, Australia]
July 5, 2026
By Kevin Dillon
What would the Pope make of recent reporting that reveals the Christian Brothers in Australia is set to declare itself bankrupt after shifting at least $500 million in assets into a separate legal entity, making it inaccessible to church child abuse victims seeking compensation?
Pope Leo XIV last month denounced the “scourge” of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy before he met privately with abuse victims in Spain. The Pope said some of his most painful encounters had been with those who have been wounded by those who were supposed to care for them, including members of the clergy.
“The Church community must respond with listening, truth, justice, reparation and an even more determined commitment to prevention and a culture of care,” the US-born Pope told Spanish bishops.
As a Catholic priest of nearly 60 years, I’m ashamed that those poor kids were damaged and burdened for life by people they were told they must both obey and trust.
Yet rather than responding in good faith, the Christian Brothers in Australia have reportedly spent years transferring the assets – mainly land and school buildings potentially worth billions – to the Trustees of Edmund Rice Education Australia.
On Thursday, all sex abuse claims against the Christian Brothers in Australia were suspended after the Supreme Court of NSW granted the Christian Brothers a moratorium, noting the organisation could run out of money if it weren’t granted.
In 2018, the order transferred schools in NSW – Waverley College in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, St Patrick’s College in Strathfield, and St Pius X College in Chatswood – to the Edmund Rice trustees for the nominal consideration of $1 each.
Three years earlier, the order had transferred three of its top Victorian schools – St Kevin’s College in Toorak, Geelong’s St Joseph’s College and Parade College in Bundoora – to Edmund Rice Australia. Doing so limits survivors’ claims for just and appropriate compensation.
The timing of this asset transfer occurred just months before state governments across Australia removed the controversial Ellis Defence, which had prevented abuse survivors from suing unincorporated organisations including churches and other institutions and had limited civil claims against churches since 2007.
Technical interpretations and nuances occasionally carry the day in some legal disputes, but for church personnel dealing with the extreme and life-long harm to children in their care, the words of Pope Leo must be paramount. Victims should not be palmed off as a merely “helpful background” to policies and decisions. Their stories must stand as a clear and decisive cornerstone in providing genuine reparation.
Does the shifting of assets (albeit legally) to limit compensation claims satisfy Pope Leo’s requirement of “reparation and a culture of care”? Even more fundamentally, does it pass the standard of Jesus Himself, to “treat others as you would like to be treated yourself”?
Surely not.
To its great credit, over many years that same Catholic order has educated untold thousands of young people and, in doing so, helped form them as responsible and upright citizens as well as imparting academic knowledge. How tragic to undo all that good by marshalling wily and reprehensible legal strategies and using them against those who have already been irreparably damaged.
In response to the sex abuse crisis within the Catholic and other churches over the past 50 years, heart-felt apologies have been issued, public ceremonies of “lamentation and sorrow” have been held, assurances have been given that “we have learnt from our mistakes”, and payments of compensation – both adequate and inadequate, court-imposed and negotiated – have been made to victims.
But by and large, the church has failed to live up to its basic Christian obligations. Had it done so, perhaps the many empty pews in our churches might still be occupied by people who treasure their faith. The offences, the subsequent cover-ups and the indefensible legal strategies used to avoid fundamental obligations largely explain why so many, in the Western world especially, no longer associate with the church in any meaningful way.
And it’s not only the former congregation who have left, but their children and grandchildren. This is a multi-generational religious catastrophe.
In 2013, I established the Lifeboat Geelong Foundation to provide pastoral support to victims of church-related sexual abuse. I’ve done my best to assist about 130 victims to date. What I find is that it is not money or handouts they are after. They seek recognition of the harm done to them. It’s a need our organisation can’t comprehensively meet on its own – but we can try to help in other ways, including, but by no means restricted to, some financial support for the many victims who are genuinely struggling to make ends meet.
There will be Church leaders concerned that just payments to abuse victims might mean that the care of frail and ageing religious and priests (of which I am one) might be compromised. In that instance they – the leaders, the priests and I – need to trust in God’s help. Beyond that faith, there must also be trust in the support of good people in the Church and beyond who genuinely believe that if you act with justice and integrity, you will never lose out.
I have spent the vast majority of my life serving as an ordained Catholic priest. I still say Mass every day and assist regularly in parish ministry. But I find it impossible to comprehend how hair-splitting legal strategies can be justified when the lives of so many former pupils, parishioners and their families continue to lie in ruins.
Father Kevin Dillon, AM, is a Catholic priest who works with survivors of church-related sexual abuse via his establishment of the Lifeboat Geelong Foundation.