Australia's Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse has heard that Cardinal George Pell believes the Catholic Church should be able to be sued over abuse by a priest.
This apparent turnaround in the church's approach to litigation by victims was revealed during a searing account of bumbling and insensitivity by Cardinal Pell and others in the Sydney Archdiocese in handling the notorious case of John Ellis.
Mr Ellis is a former partner of law firm Baker & McKenzie. He was sexually abused by priest Aidan Duggan, then of Bass Hill parish, for four years, starting when he was a 13-year-old altar boy in 1974.
Mr Ellis told the church he would accept a payment of $100,000 in 2004. He repeatedly sought mediation and a settlement in the five years between when he first approached the church with his story and when his application for leave to appeal to the High Court was rejected in 2007. But this was rejected by the church. In the end, the church spent $1.5 million on the case and on payments to Mr Ellis.
Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness, SC, said: "The manner in which this litigation was conducted caused harm and suffering to Mr Ellis.
"Concern for Mr Ellis's well-being was not apparent at the time of the litigation from the Archdiocese of Cardinal Pell's chosen solicitors."
The commission heard that in the litigation, the Sydney Archdiocese where Cardinal Pell was then archbishop disputed even that the abuse had occurred.
Behind closed doors, though, it had accepted that Mr Ellis' story was most likely true, and knew that its chancellor did not doubt it.
The Archdiocese also had further information and another victim's evidence that supported Mr Ellis' story.
"The manner in which the Archdiocese defended Mr Ellis' motion was intended to be and was vigorous. The Cardinal gave instructions to resist the proceedings," Ms Furness said.
But in his statement to the royal commission, Cardinal Pell states that he is now troubled by that approach, Ms Furness said, and he also expressed "concern" in retrospect at the cross-examination of Mr Ellis that challenged his character and credit.
But the evidence was that Cardinal Pell's approach may have been based on a gross misunderstanding.
In 2009, a letter to Mr Ellis recording the Cardinal's acknowledgement that mistakes had been made in the handling of his case stated that "Cardinal Pell had believed that Mr Ellis' legal claim was for many millions of dollars".
Mr Ellis' case established that trustees of the Catholic Church who hold the assets of a diocese cannot be held responsible for the activities of a priest within the diocese. In other words, the church lacks a legal entity that can be sued for common law damages.
Outside the hearing, Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council set up to handle its response to the royal commission, signalled the church would abandon the technical defence used in the Ellis case.
"We are saying that all of the bishops and all of the religious leaders need to make available a legal entity properly covered with insurance and wealth so that individuals can bring a case against it for matters of child sexual abuse," Mr Sullivan said.
Cardinal Pell is due to appear at the commission early next week.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Pell's performance was so impressive that Pope Francis has decided that he is just the man to clean up the Vatican accounts.
Some Catholics take an uncharitable view of George Pell. There are the faithful, clerics among them, who call him Pell Pot or Pontius Pell. There is the droll Herald letter writer who claimed the Pope's big announcement this week - removing Pell from Sydney to a big new job in Rome - was confirmation of the power of prayer.
And yet even Pell's detractors were quick to respond that Pope Francis had made a shrewd move in appointing the tough-talking Archbishop of Sydney to perhaps the toughest job in the Holy Roman Catholic Church. They say 72-year-old Pell, the Pope's new hand-picked finance tsar, has the kind of of backbone it will take to break a culture of corruption, feather-bedding and nepotism that has beset the Vatican. That, with the Pope's blessing, he is a fearless outsider with enough experience and clout with the locals to expose the byzantine money trails, centralise financial auditing and excise the fat from unwieldy bureaucracies.
John L. Allen jnr, an associate editor at The Boston Globe and respected Vatican watcher, tells Fairfax Media: ''The people invested in older ways of doing things, and by that I mean a good chunk of the population, are going to be scared to death of George Pell.''
In late March, Pell will start work as Prefect for the new Secretariat for the Economy at the Holy See and the Vatican State. It makes him the pontiff's supreme bean counter or, as Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven puts it, his reformer-in-chief.
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| Cardinal Pell at the Commission |
This apparent turnaround in the church's approach to litigation by victims was revealed during a searing account of bumbling and insensitivity by Cardinal Pell and others in the Sydney Archdiocese in handling the notorious case of John Ellis.
Mr Ellis is a former partner of law firm Baker & McKenzie. He was sexually abused by priest Aidan Duggan, then of Bass Hill parish, for four years, starting when he was a 13-year-old altar boy in 1974.
Mr Ellis told the church he would accept a payment of $100,000 in 2004. He repeatedly sought mediation and a settlement in the five years between when he first approached the church with his story and when his application for leave to appeal to the High Court was rejected in 2007. But this was rejected by the church. In the end, the church spent $1.5 million on the case and on payments to Mr Ellis.
Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness, SC, said: "The manner in which this litigation was conducted caused harm and suffering to Mr Ellis.
"Concern for Mr Ellis's well-being was not apparent at the time of the litigation from the Archdiocese of Cardinal Pell's chosen solicitors."
 |
| John Ellis |
The commission heard that in the litigation, the Sydney Archdiocese where Cardinal Pell was then archbishop disputed even that the abuse had occurred.
Behind closed doors, though, it had accepted that Mr Ellis' story was most likely true, and knew that its chancellor did not doubt it.
The Archdiocese also had further information and another victim's evidence that supported Mr Ellis' story.
"The manner in which the Archdiocese defended Mr Ellis' motion was intended to be and was vigorous. The Cardinal gave instructions to resist the proceedings," Ms Furness said.
But in his statement to the royal commission, Cardinal Pell states that he is now troubled by that approach, Ms Furness said, and he also expressed "concern" in retrospect at the cross-examination of Mr Ellis that challenged his character and credit.
But the evidence was that Cardinal Pell's approach may have been based on a gross misunderstanding.
In 2009, a letter to Mr Ellis recording the Cardinal's acknowledgement that mistakes had been made in the handling of his case stated that "Cardinal Pell had believed that Mr Ellis' legal claim was for many millions of dollars".
Mr Ellis' case established that trustees of the Catholic Church who hold the assets of a diocese cannot be held responsible for the activities of a priest within the diocese. In other words, the church lacks a legal entity that can be sued for common law damages.
Outside the hearing, Francis Sullivan, chief executive of the Catholic Church's Truth Justice and Healing Council set up to handle its response to the royal commission, signalled the church would abandon the technical defence used in the Ellis case.
"We are saying that all of the bishops and all of the religious leaders need to make available a legal entity properly covered with insurance and wealth so that individuals can bring a case against it for matters of child sexual abuse," Mr Sullivan said.
Cardinal Pell is due to appear at the commission early next week.
Meanwhile, Cardinal Pell's performance was so impressive that Pope Francis has decided that he is just the man to clean up the Vatican accounts.
Some Catholics take an uncharitable view of George Pell. There are the faithful, clerics among them, who call him Pell Pot or Pontius Pell. There is the droll Herald letter writer who claimed the Pope's big announcement this week - removing Pell from Sydney to a big new job in Rome - was confirmation of the power of prayer.
And yet even Pell's detractors were quick to respond that Pope Francis had made a shrewd move in appointing the tough-talking Archbishop of Sydney to perhaps the toughest job in the Holy Roman Catholic Church. They say 72-year-old Pell, the Pope's new hand-picked finance tsar, has the kind of of backbone it will take to break a culture of corruption, feather-bedding and nepotism that has beset the Vatican. That, with the Pope's blessing, he is a fearless outsider with enough experience and clout with the locals to expose the byzantine money trails, centralise financial auditing and excise the fat from unwieldy bureaucracies.
John L. Allen jnr, an associate editor at The Boston Globe and respected Vatican watcher, tells Fairfax Media: ''The people invested in older ways of doing things, and by that I mean a good chunk of the population, are going to be scared to death of George Pell.''
In late March, Pell will start work as Prefect for the new Secretariat for the Economy at the Holy See and the Vatican State. It makes him the pontiff's supreme bean counter or, as Australian Catholic University vice-chancellor Greg Craven puts it, his reformer-in-chief.
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