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Accusations of Abuse in Institutions

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The Press
December 28, 2002

Lifting the veil on abuse by clergy
by Yvonne Martin

Sex-abuse shocks in the Catholic Church hit home in Christchurch mid-year. The Press' review series looks at how the church is coming to terms with the sins of its sons.

For 40 years, Robert pictured the brother who abused him as a large, grizzly bear of a man -- a Marist teaching brother who towered over him when he was a teenager at Xavier College in the early 1960s and smothered him from behind with oversized bear paws.

Not to mention Brother G's musky body odour when he would sidle up to Robert, fondle him, and whisper in his ear.

But time turned the tables when Robert, now a successful 53-year-old Christchurch businessman, met Brother G, now 75, at a lawyer's office in Auckland last week.

"When he walked in I got the shock of my life. He looked like a really pathetic old man.

"I am as big as he is and with his stooped stance I actually look down on him. So much for the impressions of a 12-year-old boy who weighed only five stone at the time."

In the next half hour, Robert, with notes rehearsed in his head for decades, catalogued his feelings of revulsion, fear, low self-esteem, and guilt. He asked for an unequivocal apology for the abuse, and got it.

Such face-to-face confessions have been rare. But they may become more common as the Catholic Church grapples with wave after wave of child sex- abuse complaints.

The Church in New Zealand had appeared to be relatively free of the sex-abuse shocks ricocheting around American and Australian dioceses. That changed in June when a man, who asked to be called Patrick, found the courage to speak out in The Press about a religious order that had buried a potential scandal by secretly paying him $30,000.

Patrick felt isolated by the confidentiality clause attached to the deal, but he was in fact far from alone. In the wake of the story's publication, The Press was inundated with calls from men claiming they were abused as boys at the order's former Marylands residential school.

The order, initially coy towards media, then revealed the story it knew. Four brothers were facing allegations and it had paid out $300,000 in confidential settlements -- unknown to many other abused residents who had not been compensated. St John of God set up a freephone line to its headquarters in Sydney, hired a public relations adviser, and stood down one of its head brothers accused of abuse.

Faced with a deluge of damning complaints against them, Brother Peter Burke, the Australasian head of the order, made the unprecedented move of saying he believed the complainants. He apologised and promised to make up for their boyhood ordeals, hiring retired High Court judge Sir Rodney Gallen to oversee the process.

Since then, the order has paid $1500 each to 70 complainants as a one-off payout and even paid for a private operation for one man, who claims he lost 60 per cent of hearing in one ear from blows to the head. Christchurch police are forming a team of detectives to investigate the 21 complaints that have emerged so far. Lawyer Grant Cameron is negotiating with the Church on behalf of a similar number of men.

Other religious orders, including nuns, also came under scrutiny. Supporters of Nazareth House in Sydenham rallied in protest against accusations that their nuns physically abused girls entrusted to their care.

The claims came from five women taking legal action against the Sisters of Nazareth for alleged incidents in the 1950s and 1960s. One woman was revealed to have already had a generous payout from another order of nuns, and was seeking another $500,000.

Then, in October, came the bombshell that Christchurch's much-loved son, Father Jim Consedine, had suddenly left his Lyttelton parish of 17 years to undergo counselling after sexual- abuse allegations from four women. One is consulting a lawyer with a view to suing the Church for allegedly failing to act.

A leading advocate of restorative justice, Father Consedine has maintained his right to silence while many of his supporters have struggled to come to terms with the allegations.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church's main freephone line, which was also set up six months ago, will be unplugged on Tuesday.

Its protocol committees, which hear sex-abuse complaints, must be groaning under the workload, as probably are the bishops.

The guidelines they endorsed on handling complaints, A Path to Healing, have come under fire for failing to adequately address victims' needs.

But Catholic Communications director Lyndsay Freer says the document is an evolving work in progress.

"It's never been meant to be the last word. It's going to be constantly under revision."

She says it has been a hard year for the Church, confronting the offending of its sons. But it is bound to have been tougher for victims like Robert, who have suffered for years in silence, thinking they were lone cases.

"The bulk of complaints probably has been received, but I think there is a lot of work here now in dealing with them appropriately," Ms Freer says.

The Church encourages complainants to face their perpetrators, if both parties are ready and willing -- which is leading to encounters such as that experienced by Robert.

Robert reports that Brother G apologised for the inappropriate touching, asked for forgiveness, and said that he prayed for Robert daily.

Brother G's lawyer said that his client was a very ill old man, had no money, and was at the meeting voluntarily.

Robert had sought peace, not a handout. He left the room feeling relieved and elated.

"It was the best thing I ever did. If I hadn't done it, I would have been a bitter man for the rest of my life," he says. "I've confronted him. He's not the ogre I thought he was. I have nothing to fear any more."