It faces 450 claims and has so far spent $C450,000 ($543,000) in legal fees. Its reserves are running low, according to Bishop Duncan Wallace, and a couple of successful claims will see it close -- as the diocese of Carlboo, in British Colombia, did last December after abuse compensation claims were awarded against it.
Qu'Appelle is the tip of an iceberg that threatens to sink not just the Anglican Church in Canada, now facing 1500 compensation claims, but also the Catholic, United and Presbyterian churches, which face a further 7500 claims arising from abuse at residential schools for native children. The Canadian Government estimates the claims to be worth $C1 billion, and has proposed bailing out the churches by paying 70 per cent of the settlement.
Bendigo may not face immediate extinction, unlike the general synod of the Anglican Church in Canada, which does not have the funds to operate beyond this year. However, the Victorian diocese was already struggling financially before receiving a writ this week claiming at least $150,000 in damages against a diocesan priest, who has since committed suicide; he is alleged to have sexually abused 10-year-old Peter Flaherty twice a week between 1967 and 1973.
It is possibly the first Australian diocese to suffer the flow-on effect of the furore surrounding Peter Hollingworth's handling of sexual abuse allegations as archbishop of Brisbane; and the shock wave caused by the Supreme Court decision last December to award $834,000 in damages against the Brisbane diocese over the Toowoomba Preparatory School scandal.
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An unholy mess
Claims facing the Anglican Church:
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The court said the school had failed in its duty of care and awarded the damages to a 24-year-old woman sexually abused by Kevin Guy, a Toowoomba boarding master, for seven months in 1990. Guy committed suicide later that year, professing his love for 20 girls at the school.
Bishop of Bendigo David Bowden has begun investigations into O'Flaherty's abuse claims. He questions whether the diocese can be held responsible for decisions made 30 years ago by a different bishop. He says the diocese would be sent broke by compensation as high as the Brisbane award.
The truth of the current allegations is yet to be determined, but many associated with the church suspect it is now paying the price of decades of institutionalised secrecy in its treatment of sexual abuse allegations against priests and church workers. The issue has been a ticking bomb that finally exploded in Brisbane.
The Anglican Church cannot say it wasn't warned. Four years ago the Tasmanian diocese commissioned clinical psychologist Michael Crowley and barrister Tonia Kohl to hold an independent inquiry on sexual misconduct by priests and church workers. It listed church failures, and particularly its instinctive reaction to preserve secrecy and to forgive the offending priest -- the same attitudes that brought criticism of Hollingworth in Brisbane.
It quoted American priest Marie Fortune, who studied 27 sexual abuse offenders in a treatment program. "Of the 25 active Christians among them, every one told her that, once the abuse was discovered, their minister had immediately pronounced forgiveness and prayed for them before sending them away.
"They said the church had failed them by immediately declaring their sins 'forgiven'. It was only the secular treatment program that was confronting their wrongdoing and holding them accountable for what they had done. Cheap grace is not grace at all if it leaves no incentive for the offender to take responsibility for his offending."
The report concluded: "Not only should the changes we are suggesting be taken for moral reasons, but because of the possible legal consequences if the church does not address these issues. If the church fails to address these issues, an action in negligence may succeed against them."
One of the inquiry's strongest supporters was Phillip Aspinall, then director of Anglicare in Hobart, and now Hollingworth's successor in Brisbane.
This week's Bendigo allegations suggest the same climate of church secrecy. O'Flaherty, now 44, alleges he was 10 when he was first abused by an assistant priest in 1967. He told his parish priest about the abuse, and the priest, after making investigations, did nothing.
Bowden, like other senior churchmen now dealing with misconduct allegations, finds himself torn between protecting the victim and the church. "I have a duty of care to the victim, but at the same time the resources of mother church are not limitless. Contrary to some misunderstandings, the Anglican Church is not loaded with money and most parishes and dioceses experience difficulty these days in funding ministry to their own people and the community."
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[Picture of a bishop in front of a
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The church had other warnings to watch its ways. One of the earliest wake-up calls came from Justice James Woods's royal commission into the NSW police and pedophilia in 1997. Then Anglican archbishop of Sydney Harry Goodhew was called to give evidence on one priest, and subsequently decided to create an office of professional standards, under director Phillip Gerber.
Most dioceses have since moved to introduce sexual abuse protocols for complainants -- many of whom took no action in the past because of the perception that the church would hush up their claims, which would not be heard by independent advisers.
Anglican Primate Peter Carnley rejects the financial doomsday scenario. Carnley, Archbishop of Perth, says: "I am not persuaded that awards of damages against some dioceses will be of such a size and number that the dioceses will be bankrupted. All dioceses carry insurance policies which offer protection to the diocesan entity and those awarded damages. The issue of financial costs is of concern, but of greater concern is the damage to people affected by abuse by church workers and clergy."
Those insurance contracts referred to by Carnley are another source of financial uncertainty for some dioceses. It is understood that Hollingworth was advised in the Toowoomba case that if the diocese paid for counselling for the two victims of Guy, the insurers would void the contract. It raises questions about whether the church can maintain insurance while still offering pastoral care.
Gerber, from the Sydney diocese, says: "There are endless debates about whether expressing support and apologising to the victims admits liability. I don't think it does." Gerber, who used to work in car insurance, draws the comparison that apologising for a car accident does not amount to an admission of liability.
Each of Australia's 23 dioceses has professional misconduct insurance. Bishop Andrew Curnow, registrar of the Melbourne diocese, says: "We have not sacrificed the care of victims to preserve insurance contracts."
Gerber says the wealthy Sydney diocese will not go bankrupt over misconduct claims. But Curnow expresses the nervousness felt elsewhere, post-Brisbane: "It's like a big iceberg on a dark night. We don't know what's out there. If we get hit by an avalanche of claims like the Canadian church, we will be in a very difficult situation."
©The Australian at http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/ To e-mail letters to the editor use: letters@theaustralian.com.au
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