Canberra’s Catholics are angry and disappointed at the way the Marist Brothers dealt with sex abuse by paedophile teachers, the layman leading the church’s response to the royal commission investigation into the issue says.
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A long-time Canberra resident, Catholic Church Truth, Justice and Healing Council chief executive Francis Sullivan, said his own son had gone to Marist College Canberra and he was a committed member of the local congregation.
''The Catholic community generally in Canberra is extraordinarily angry about the situation the church leadership over the years has put the church in,'' he said.
''The Catholic community shakes its head over the way in which victims appear to have been treated and a lot of us, including myself, who is a member of the community – and had my own son at Marist College – don’t want the past to in any way taint what goes on at the college today.''
Mr Sullivan said poor judgment over the handling of sexual abuse in the past had been a ''significant contributor'' to the church’s present ''very low'' credibility.
''I would sincerely hope that [within the next five years] people will have seen the church has been prepared to be exposed for its history and that it has done the necessary actions to ensure it is never going to be ‘business as usual’ [ever again].''
Mr Sullivan, who sat through all of the Canberra hearings of the Royal Commission on Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse, said many of the revelations had been disturbing.
These included correspondence between the Marist Brothers and their lawyers on how best to prevent their insurers, Catholic Church Insurance, from discovering the order had known Brother Kostka (John) Chute was a child abuser as early as 1960.
''The thing that really irritates a lot of people who have had anything to do with Marist [College Canberra] over the past 20 years is that the school our kids went to is not the school we are hearing about in the royal commission.''
He said generational change and a recognition of the need for major reform had driven a very different approach to a subject that had once been swept under the carpet.
''The current principal [at Marist College Canberra] has great resolve and the principal before him was the same,'' he said.
''In my dealings with bishops and congregational leaders [on the response to the royal commission], we’ve had complete co-operation. People like Archbishop [Christopher] Prowse are the new breed of leader. He is unashamedly clear about where he thinks the church needs to be on these matters.''
Archbishop Prowse was appointed Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn late last year.
Mr Sullivan says the royal commission is driving changes the church was either unwilling or unable to make on its own. . ''The Catholic Church is a classic closed system. It’s got a history of always being hypersensitive to its image and) it has tried to rationalise that in all sorts of extreme ways.
''When push comes to shove, they put the image of the church as the number one priority; not that of the [welfare] of the people who were victims. That was the sad thing. It [that decision] hung pretty heavily in the room [during the commission hearings in Canberra].''
Mr Sullivan said the Truth, Justice and Healing Council was committed to ensuring the church was fully engaged in the inquiry process.
''We are not apologists. Our whole job is to try and keep the church leaders on task about being open and transparent at the royal commission and then to look at what measures we think the church needs to put in place to better protect children.''
