The ruling enables the father of a deceased former choirboy to sue Cardinal George Pell and the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

The ruling is another chapter in a saga of allegations and prosecutions against Pell, who is a former Archbishop of Melbourne.

In 2018 he was found guilty in the County Court of abusing two choirboys in 1976. Those convictions were quashed by the High Court in 2020 and Pell was released from prison after spending more than a year in custody.

The deceased choirboy's father (known as RWQ) then sought permission to take Pell and the Archdiocese to the civil court.

RWQ is now seeking compensation for the nervous shock and psychiatric injury he's suffered since 2015 when police told him they believed Pell had abused his son and another choirboy.

His son, however, had never made allegations against Pell. He died in 2014 from a heroin overdose.

Nonetheless, his father says the Archdiocese is vicariously liable for the alleged abuse and that he has lost money to medical expenses and earning capacity due to suffering from several psychological conditions.

Lawyers for the Archdiocese had argued RWQ was not entitled to pursue civil action against it.

They said the Legal Identity of Defendants Act passed in 2018 stated that financial compensation for damage inflicted would be made only on abuse survivors as "primary victims" and not their families as "secondary victims".

Countering this argument, lawyers representing RWQ said the Act's wording allows for claims to be brought against the clergy "founded on or arising from child abuse".

On Wednesday Justice Michael McDonald ruled the law could extend to secondary child abuse victims.

"The plain meaning of the words ‘founded on or arising from child abuse' … includes a claim for nervous shock brought by a parent of a child alleged to have been sexually abused," he told the court.

He said repeated usage of "founded on or arising from child abuse" in the Act pointed strongly to a conclusion that the law was not confined to claims brought by primary abuse victims.

"To conclude otherwise renders the words ‘arising from child abuse' otiose," McDonald said in his written decision.

Source

• The New Daily
• The Age

The residence comes complete with an indoor pool.

The leak follows a recent announcement by the archdiocese making dozens of staff redundant.

The Australian newspaper learned that in virtually the same breath as warning his archdiocese of budget constraint, a reorientation of core functions affecting 140,000 weekly parishioners, plus staff redundancies, Comensoli spent AUD900,000 on a private country retreat.

Documents provided to the newspaper show Comensoli placed a caveat, signalli­ng ownership, on the property­ last month. He purchased it from money provided by his family, not the Church.

The documents say the property's most recent­ listing price was $860,000 and was sold on 24 May - which was just over a week after staff and clergy were told of Comensoli's plans to overhaul the archdiocese.

"It's not what the church is about. Kicking out hardworking people,'' a church figure said.

Comensoli, believed to be privately furious, declined to comment when The Australian contacted him.

The newspaper says commentators are speculating that some of Melbourne's inner-city parishes will have to close because of financial pressures - some of which are a result of falling attendances linked to the sex abuse crisis.

It also reports that a priest from one inner-city parish says under five percent of Catholic school families attend weekend mass regularly - a matter he has brought up with the children's parents.

An archdiocesan spokesman says while there are some challenges, there are areas in Melbourne where attendances were strong.

"We do have ongoing­ concerns about falling mass attendances though this is not a new phenomenon.

"Every Sunday almost 140,000 people attend mass across the archdiocese of Melbourne."

The spokesman noted several outer-Melbourne ­parishes are doing very well, including Deer Park, where 1930 people attend mass weekly, Mill Park (2068) and St Albans (3398).

Source

• The Australian
• Image: The Australian

The current plan was designed to limit financial damage to the Church by having clergy sex abuse survivors sign away their rights to sue the Church.

Known as the Melbourne Response, compensation payments were initially capped at $50,000 when Cardinal George Pell devised the scheme in 1996.

Payments were later raised to $75,000. However, victims had to to sign a deed of settlement waiving their right to take civil action against the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne.

A spokesperson for the archdiocese says, despite this deed, the archdiocese has provided "additional redress payments totalling $11.07 million based on a cap of $150,000 to 233 survivors of child sexual abuse".

These survivors include those whose claims were previously accepted by the Melbourne Response and who received compensation under previous caps.

Although the deed of settlement has not so far been challenged in the state of Victoria (of which Melbourne is the capital), some victims in other Australian states have received hundred-fold increases in payouts after judges set aside their deed of settlement with the church.

But that number could increase. Victoria's state government is considering following the states of Queensland and Western Australia in providing blanket relief to survivors who have signed so-called releases from liability for the Church.

If it were to do this, survivors would be free to sue for further damages, which would in turn see payouts from the archdiocese climb considerably higher.

Observers have noted in some other states, these payments have increased one hundred-fold.

Australia's Royal Commission into Child Abuse recommended a maximum payout to victims of $200,000. The National Redress Scheme currently limits payouts to $150,000, but a parliamentary inquiry has recommended this be changed to $200,000.

The Australian Catholic Bishops' Conference backed the $200,000 figure in its submission to the parliamentary inquiry.

Source

• Crux
• Image: Irish Times

The Age - a daily newspaper that has been published in Melbourne since 1854 - undertook the six-month investigation.

It found the Church is far wealthier than it asserted to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The Age says the Australian Catholic Church claimed "grossly undervalued" its property holdings. It says the Church told the Royal Commission increased payments to abuse survivors could require cuts to its social programmes.

The investigation found the Church is the biggest non-government property owner in Victoria and one of the largest property owners in Australia: Church wealth in Victoria alone is over AUD$9 billion.

Other assets the investigation took into account include: Catholic Church Insurance Ltd (established in 1911); a number of Catholic Development Funds (CDF) valued at several billion dollars - with the Melbourne CDF valued at over a billion dollars; investments, including in superannuation and telecommunications; and a funds management portfolio of over $1.4 billion.

The investigation claims the Church's Victoria portfolio alone is estimated to be about $9 billion.

In contrast, the Melbourne Archdiocese told the Royal Commission in 2014 it valued its Melbourne properties at just $109 million.

Asked by the Royal Commission specifically to nominate a value for the assets of the Church and its associated entities, the Melbourne Archdiocese communications director Shane Healy said such information was "not available".

The investigation also found the Royal Commission heard the compensation scheme Archbishop George Pell established 20 years ago provided a maximum of $35,000 to those who had been abused by clergy.

In all, $11.3 million has been paid to 324 survivors of child sexual abuse.

The investigation contrasts the compensation payments to other Church spending. As an example, it found that in 2015, the Melbourne archdiocese paid $39 million - more than three times the total amount it has paid out in compensation to sexual abuse victims - for new premium offices. The offices are located in the heritage-listed Industry House in East Melbourne, near St Patrick's Cathedral.

"These figures confirm what we have known; there is huge inequity between the Catholic Church's wealth and their responses to survivors," says Helen Last, chief executive of the In Good Faith Foundation, which supports abuse survivors.

"The 600 survivors registered for our Foundation's services continue to experience minimal compensation and lack of comprehensive care in relation to their church abuses. They say their needs are the lowest of Church priorities."

Healy argues the Church's meeting the claims of survivors whose complaints of abuse were upheld was "amongst its highest priorities".

He said that since that report the church had paid an extra $17.2 million to survivors.

Fairfax Media, which owns and publishes The Age, published the investigation results across several media channels yesterday.

Source

• The Age
• 7 News
• Bendigo Advertiser
• Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: news.com.au