Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing Evidence
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Virginia Miller FIRENZE UNIVERSITY Virginia Miller PRESS Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing Evidence Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing the Evidence FUP STUDI E SAGGI ISSN 2704-6478 (PRINT) - ISSN 2704-5919 (ONLINE) – 221 – Virginia Miller Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing the Evidence FIRENZE UNIVERSITY PRESS 2021 Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing the Evidence / Virginia Miller. – Firenze : Firenze University Press, 2021. (Studi e saggi ; 221) https://www.fupress.com/isbn/9788855182799 ISSN 2704-6478 (print) ISSN 2704-5919 (online) ISBN 978-88-5518-278-2 (Print) ISBN 978-88-5518-279-9 (PDF) ISBN 978-88-5518-280-5 (XML) DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-279-9 Graphic design: Alberto Pizarro Fernández, Lettera Meccanica SRLs Front cover: William Bouguereau, Pieta from the image collection complied for the ARC Museum. Image courtesy of the Art Renewal Center® www.artrenewal.org FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI https://doi.org/10.36253/fup_best_practice) All publications are submitted to an external refereeing process under the responsibility of the FUP Editorial Board and the Scientific Boards of the series. The works published are evaluated and approved by the Editorial Board of the publishing house, and must be compliant with the Peer review policy, the Open Access, Copyright and Licensing policy and the Publication Ethics and Complaint policy. Firenze University Press Editorial Board M. Garzaniti (Editor-in-Chief), M.E. Alberti, F. Arrigoni, M. Boddi, R. Casalbuoni, F. Ciampi, A. Dolfi, R. Ferrise, P. Guarnieri, A. Lambertini, R. Lanfredini, P. Lo Nostro, G. Mari, A. Mariani, P.M. Mariano, S. Marinai, R. Minuti, P. Nanni, A. Novelli, A. Orlandi, A. Perulli, G. Pratesi, O. Roselli. The online digital edition is published in Open Access on www.fupress.com. Content license: the present work is released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode). This license allows you to share any part of the work by any means and format, modify it for any purpose, including commercial, as long as appropriate credit is given to the author, any changes made to the work are indicated and a URL link is provided to the license. Metadata license: all the metadata are released under the Public Domain Dedication license (CC0 1.0 Universal: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/legalcode). © 2021 Author(s) Published by Firenze University Press Firenze University Press Università degli Studi di Firenze via Cittadella, 7, 50144 Firenze, Italy www.fupress.com This book is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Italy Table of contents Acknowledgements 9 Abbreviations 13 Introduction 15 Chapter 1 The Irish Inquiry 21 1.1. Introduction 21 1.2. The historical context 21 1.3. The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (the Ryan Report) 22 1.4. The Ferns Inquiry 29 1.5. The Dublin Archidiocese Commission of Investigation (the Murphy Report) 31 1.6. The Cloyne Report 43 1.7. Measures that were put in place by the Church in Ireland 50 1.8. Redress 54 1.9. Conclusion 56 Chapter 2 The John Jay Inquiry 59 2.1. Introduction 59 2.2. Statistics of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA 61 2.3. Nature of the complaints 62 2.4. Ephebophilia 63 2.5. Fixated and regressed offenders 64 FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Virginia Miller, Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing the Evidence, © 2021 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Firenze University Press (www.fupress.com), ISSN 2704-5919 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-279-9 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-279-9 CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE INQUIRIES AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: REASSESSING THE EVIDENCE 2.6. Male-on-male abuse 65 2.7. Historical problem 70 2.8. Measures that were put in place by the Church 71 2.9. Offender treatment in the USA 75 2.10. Confusing policies 76 2.11. Other concerns 77 2.12. Celibacy 77 2.13. Miscellaneous points 78 2.14. Compensation 82 2.15. Conclusion 83 Chapter 3 The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (Australia) 85 3.1. Introduction 85 3.2. Private sessions 86 3.3. Unsubstantiated claims 87 3.4. Claims from the Catholic Church 95 3.5. Historical nature of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Australia 101 3.6. Measures the Church has taken 102 3.7. Police 105 3.8. Delayed reports of child sexual abuse 107 3.9. Lay offenders in the Catholic Church 108 3.10. Seal of confession 109 3.11. Redress 110 3.12. Case-study Cardinal George Pell 112 3.13. Conclusion 117 Chapter 4 Conclusion 119 4.1. Unsubstantiated claims 121 4.2. Ambiguous language 122 4.3. Seriousness of offences 123 4.4. Male homosexuality 124 4.5. Historical problem 128 Appendix 1 The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (England and Wales) 135 A1.1. The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse general comments 135 A1.2. The investigation into the Catholic Church 136 A1.3. Conclusion 141 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS Appendix 2 The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Historical Abuse in State Care and in the Care of Faith-based Institutions (New Zealand) 143 A2.1. Introduction 143 A2.2. Martin Jenkins Report 145 A2.3. Conclusion 149 Reference list 151 Index of names 163 7 Acknowledgements I would like to thank the following people and institutions for their assistance in relation to the writing of this book. I note that the people mentioned, although providing me with information and other assistance, may not share my views and, of course, I take full responsibility for the views expressed in this work. In 2017, whilst undertaking this research, I was most fortunate to be a schol- ar in residence at the Anglican Centre in Rome (ACR). The ACR is the Anglican embassy to the Holy See. As such, the Director of the ACR is the Archbishop of Canterbury’s representative to the Pope. For this fellowship I am most grateful to the then Director of the ACR, the Most Rev’d. Sir David Moxon, who with his wife Lady Tureiti Moxon, encouraged me to seek the truth in this politically fraught undertaking. This fellowship enabled me to meet and interact with a number of key informants in relation to the research undertaken in this study. I am particu- larly grateful to Ms. Teresa Kettlecamp, then Commissioner with the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors (former Illinois state police colonel and director of the US Bishop’s Child Protection Office), for her insights. I also thank the Domus Internationalis for their hospitality when I was in Rome. My visit there was invaluable as I witnessed the workings of clerical residential homes. On a subsequent visit to Rome I was fortunate to meet with HE Melissa Hitchman, then Australian Ambassador to the Holy See. Ms Hitchman sent my work to the Australian Government to assist them in their response to the Royal Commission. Furthermore, I am thankful to Fr. Hans Zollner SJ, the President of the Centre for Child Protection at the Gregorian University in Rome, for his assistance. FUP Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (DOI 10.36253/fup_best_practice) Virginia Miller, Child Sexual Abuse Inquiries and the Catholic Church: Reassessing the Evidence, © 2021 Author(s), content CC BY 4.0 International, metadata CC0 1.0 Universal, published by Firenze University Press (www.fupress.com), ISSN 2704-5919 (online), ISBN 978-88-5518-279-9 (PDF), DOI 10.36253/978-88-5518-279-9 CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE INQUIRIES AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: REASSESSING THE EVIDENCE I would also like to thank the principal investigators on the John Jay Inquiry, Prof. Karen Terry and Ms. Margaret Smith, who met with me in New York to discuss their seminal work on child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in the USA. Prof. John Kleinig arranged this meeting, sent me relevant material, and provided very much appreciated hospitality during this visit. Furthermore, I am thankful to many other scholars who provided useful information and advice to me, notably Dr. Colin Jory who sent me many help- ful articles and Dr. Chris S. Friel whose tireless work on the case of Cardinal George Pell was very instructive. I would also like to thank Dr. Michael Cooney for meeting with me. Michael was ex-Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s speechwrit- er at the time she called the Australian Royal Commission. I am grateful to the Centre for Public and Contextual Theology, Charles Sturt University, Australia, for funding this research. In particular I would like to thank the Executive Director of the Centre, the Rt. Rev’d. Prof. Stephen Pick- ard, for commissioning this research, the Rev’d. Canon Prof. Scott Cowdell for offering much needed advice, and my colleagues at Charles Sturt University for providing me with assistance of various kinds. I would like to thank the Rev’d. Dr. Christine Sorensen who invited me to give a presentation on my work at the United Theological College in Sydney, and John Cox for sharing with me his insider knowledge of the Australian Roy- al Commission and the Uniting Church. John is the Director of National Safe Church Unit and the person in charge of the Uniting Church’s response to the Royal Commission. I thank Peter Hade (Manager of Australian Catholic Re- dress Ltd.) for meeting with me to discuss the Catholic Church’s involvement in the Australian redress scheme and Fr.