The following is an excerpt from Australia Broadcasting Corp's radio program The World Today in which there are some remarkable exchanges in Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse.
Eleanor Hall is the voice of ABC Radio at lunchtime. She hosts the ABC's daily newshour, The World Today, which delivers national and international news and analysis to radio and online audiences nationally and throughout the region.
She is speaking with reporter Emily Bourke, who is covering the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse. Quotes from the hearings are in italics.
ELEANOR HALL: To Sydney now and the most senior Catholic Church leader to come before the child abuse Royal Commission today admitted to spectacular bungling when handling a compensation claim from an abuse survivor.
Another church leader has come under intense questioning over whether the Church can be held legally liable for the crimes of priests.
The World Today's Emily Bourke has been monitoring the hearings and joins us now.
So Emily who was giving evidence from the church this morning?
EMILY BOURKE: Reverend John Gerry was assigned by the Archdiocese of Brisbane to deal with Towards Healing matters when Joan Isaacs' case came forward.
Towards Healing is a branch of the Catholic Church set up to deal with sexual abuses by clerics.
Mrs Isaacs was sexually abused by a priest in Brisbane when she was 14 years old in the late 1960s.
Now Mrs Isaacs came forward in 1999 asking the Church for counselling, compensation and an apology.
She was paid $30,000 in compensation after two years of negotiations through the Towards Healing process. And that was despite lodging a claim of more than $350,000.
Yesterday the inquiry heard from church officials who said that they were advised to avoid any compensation talk with Mrs Isaacs and to limit the wording of an apology to avoid legal liability.
There were also some admissions that the Church mishandled the case by relying too heavily on the advice of lawyers and its insurers, of which there were two.
Now, on reflection, John Gerry he said he believed the Church got it wrong because it wasn't aware of the pain and the depth of trauma and the ongoing blight of abuse on a person's life. In 2001? Are you kidding me?
But he was pressed on how he personally dealt with Mrs Isaacs. And he was asked by Counsel Assisting Gail Furness to explain a particular phone call with Mrs Isaacs.
GAIL FURNESS: Your response to Joan Isaacs saying why have other cases settled and I'm being singled out. The reason we couldn't settle this is because the insurance people will not come into this case.
JOHN GERRY: Yes.
GAIL FURNESS: The insurance people were in the case, weren't they? From the beginning.
JOHN GERRY: Yes. But my use of the word was not at CCI.
GAIL FURNESS: Well you expected Joan Isaacs to understand that your statement was making a distinction between two unnamed insurance companies, do you?
JOHN GERRY: I'm stating there from the fact that I've not been involved, I'm not au fait with what's happening and that was the best I could do off the back foot.
GAIL FURNESS: I suggest to you that that statement was wrong and you knew it was wrong when you made it.
JOHN GERRY: I would not make a wrong statement.
ELEANOR HALL: That's former Auxiliary Bishop John Gerry, under questioning by Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness.
Now Emily, there's also the question about the Catholic Church's legal liability for the offences committed by its priests. What argument has the church been mounting on that this morning?
EMILY BOURKE: Reverend John Gerry has tried to distance the Church - in a legal sense - from those priests who have committed crimes against children.
The Chair of the Royal Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, said that that line, that position being taken by the Church was descending into semantics. Here's a bit of that exchange.
JOHN GERRY: We are sinners but we do our best.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Right. When you say you are sinners, they are people who are members of the Church who are sinners, aren't they?
JOHN GERRY: That's right. All of us.
PETER MCCLELLAN: And some of those sins as we know involve very serious criminal offences.
JOHN GERRY: Correct.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Do you not think that the Church as a whole should share responsibility for those people who commit those serious criminal offences in terms of recompense to the victims?
JOHN GERRY: It shares the shame.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Why shouldn't it share the responsibility, Bishop?
JOHN GERRY: Because individuals are not responsible for somebody else's culpability.
PETER MCCLELLAN: But Bishop, I put to you that the reason the event happens is because of the relationship which the Church creates through what it offers and that people that accept that offer and come within its trust. That's correct isn't it?
JOHN GERRY: There's a sacred trust, yes.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Yes. And when it's breached, can you understand that many people might think the responsibility for that breach lies not only with the individual but with the Church who provides the opportunity for that individual to breach that trust?
JOHN GERRY: Then the question is what is the Church? The Church is, has tremendous variety of realities.
PETER MCCLELLAN: The reality of all those varieties is that there is one body which you choose, we all choose, to call the Church. Which in its various manifestations creates the relationship which leads to the breach of trust, isn't it?
JOHN GERRY: The word church that you use then, has different meanings.
PETER MCCLELLAN: I'm sure that's right Bishop. There'll be some listening to this who might think that this has now descended into a semantic discussion.
JOHN GERRY: I hope not.
PETER MCCLELLAN: And that you're avoiding the real question.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Justice Peter McClellan putting the former Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Church, John Gerry, under some intense questioning there.
Now Emily, the Archbishop of Brisbane also gave evidence. He gave a blunt assessment of how the Church handled Mrs Isaacs' claim. Tell us what he said.
EMILY BOURKE: Archbishop Mark Coleridge has been in the top position in the Archdiocese of Brisbane since May of last year and so he wasn't in the role at the time that Mrs Isaacs' case was being handled. But he certainly didn't mince his words about what happened.
MARK COLERIDGE: Where it went wrong, the counselling episode in the case of Mrs Isaacs seems to be to be a case of spectacular bungling on the part of the Archdiocese of Brisbane where everyone seemed to presume that someone else was doing it. And that's a lack of oversight. I think the Archbishop should have made sure that the commitment to pay for counselling was in fact honoured.
And then similarly with compensation. Now lawyers and insurers have their word to speak. But they can't have a final word. That was always true. It wasn't so obvious back in the late nineties, but it was true. It's certainly true now.
ELEANOR HALL: Interesting contrast there. That's the Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge. And our reporter Emily Bourke, covering the Royal Commission.
Eleanor Hall is the voice of ABC Radio at lunchtime. She hosts the ABC's daily newshour, The World Today, which delivers national and international news and analysis to radio and online audiences nationally and throughout the region.
She is speaking with reporter Emily Bourke, who is covering the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sex Abuse. Quotes from the hearings are in italics.
 |
| Eleanor Hall |
Another church leader has come under intense questioning over whether the Church can be held legally liable for the crimes of priests.
The World Today's Emily Bourke has been monitoring the hearings and joins us now.
So Emily who was giving evidence from the church this morning?
EMILY BOURKE: Reverend John Gerry was assigned by the Archdiocese of Brisbane to deal with Towards Healing matters when Joan Isaacs' case came forward.
Towards Healing is a branch of the Catholic Church set up to deal with sexual abuses by clerics.
Mrs Isaacs was sexually abused by a priest in Brisbane when she was 14 years old in the late 1960s.
Now Mrs Isaacs came forward in 1999 asking the Church for counselling, compensation and an apology.
She was paid $30,000 in compensation after two years of negotiations through the Towards Healing process. And that was despite lodging a claim of more than $350,000.
Yesterday the inquiry heard from church officials who said that they were advised to avoid any compensation talk with Mrs Isaacs and to limit the wording of an apology to avoid legal liability.
There were also some admissions that the Church mishandled the case by relying too heavily on the advice of lawyers and its insurers, of which there were two.
Now, on reflection, John Gerry he said he believed the Church got it wrong because it wasn't aware of the pain and the depth of trauma and the ongoing blight of abuse on a person's life. In 2001? Are you kidding me?
But he was pressed on how he personally dealt with Mrs Isaacs. And he was asked by Counsel Assisting Gail Furness to explain a particular phone call with Mrs Isaacs.
GAIL FURNESS: Your response to Joan Isaacs saying why have other cases settled and I'm being singled out. The reason we couldn't settle this is because the insurance people will not come into this case.
JOHN GERRY: Yes.
GAIL FURNESS: The insurance people were in the case, weren't they? From the beginning.
JOHN GERRY: Yes. But my use of the word was not at CCI.
GAIL FURNESS: Well you expected Joan Isaacs to understand that your statement was making a distinction between two unnamed insurance companies, do you?
JOHN GERRY: I'm stating there from the fact that I've not been involved, I'm not au fait with what's happening and that was the best I could do off the back foot.
GAIL FURNESS: I suggest to you that that statement was wrong and you knew it was wrong when you made it.
JOHN GERRY: I would not make a wrong statement.
ELEANOR HALL: That's former Auxiliary Bishop John Gerry, under questioning by Senior Counsel Assisting Gail Furness.
Now Emily, there's also the question about the Catholic Church's legal liability for the offences committed by its priests. What argument has the church been mounting on that this morning?
EMILY BOURKE: Reverend John Gerry has tried to distance the Church - in a legal sense - from those priests who have committed crimes against children.
The Chair of the Royal Commission, Justice Peter McClellan, said that that line, that position being taken by the Church was descending into semantics. Here's a bit of that exchange.
JOHN GERRY: We are sinners but we do our best.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Right. When you say you are sinners, they are people who are members of the Church who are sinners, aren't they?
JOHN GERRY: That's right. All of us.
PETER MCCLELLAN: And some of those sins as we know involve very serious criminal offences.
JOHN GERRY: Correct.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Do you not think that the Church as a whole should share responsibility for those people who commit those serious criminal offences in terms of recompense to the victims?
JOHN GERRY: It shares the shame.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Why shouldn't it share the responsibility, Bishop?
JOHN GERRY: Because individuals are not responsible for somebody else's culpability.
PETER MCCLELLAN: But Bishop, I put to you that the reason the event happens is because of the relationship which the Church creates through what it offers and that people that accept that offer and come within its trust. That's correct isn't it?
JOHN GERRY: There's a sacred trust, yes.
PETER MCCLELLAN: Yes. And when it's breached, can you understand that many people might think the responsibility for that breach lies not only with the individual but with the Church who provides the opportunity for that individual to breach that trust?
JOHN GERRY: Then the question is what is the Church? The Church is, has tremendous variety of realities.
PETER MCCLELLAN: The reality of all those varieties is that there is one body which you choose, we all choose, to call the Church. Which in its various manifestations creates the relationship which leads to the breach of trust, isn't it?
JOHN GERRY: The word church that you use then, has different meanings.
PETER MCCLELLAN: I'm sure that's right Bishop. There'll be some listening to this who might think that this has now descended into a semantic discussion.
JOHN GERRY: I hope not.
PETER MCCLELLAN: And that you're avoiding the real question.
ELEANOR HALL: That's Justice Peter McClellan putting the former Auxiliary Bishop of the Catholic Church, John Gerry, under some intense questioning there.
Now Emily, the Archbishop of Brisbane also gave evidence. He gave a blunt assessment of how the Church handled Mrs Isaacs' claim. Tell us what he said.
EMILY BOURKE: Archbishop Mark Coleridge has been in the top position in the Archdiocese of Brisbane since May of last year and so he wasn't in the role at the time that Mrs Isaacs' case was being handled. But he certainly didn't mince his words about what happened.
MARK COLERIDGE: Where it went wrong, the counselling episode in the case of Mrs Isaacs seems to be to be a case of spectacular bungling on the part of the Archdiocese of Brisbane where everyone seemed to presume that someone else was doing it. And that's a lack of oversight. I think the Archbishop should have made sure that the commitment to pay for counselling was in fact honoured.
And then similarly with compensation. Now lawyers and insurers have their word to speak. But they can't have a final word. That was always true. It wasn't so obvious back in the late nineties, but it was true. It's certainly true now.
ELEANOR HALL: Interesting contrast there. That's the Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge. And our reporter Emily Bourke, covering the Royal Commission.
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