SYDNEY (CathNews) — Abuse victims have rejected prayers for them offered at a Mass in Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral on July 8 as hypocritical and an empty gesture, reports The Age.
At the Mass, Bishop Julian Porteous said the sexual abuse of children was a “most heinous crime’’ because of the damage it did to victims and their families, and was worse if the abuser represented the Church and was in a unique position of trust.
A spokeswoman for the archdiocese of Sydney said Bishop Porteous had been sincere in offering the Mass for victims and asking for forgiveness.
“If Bishop Julian had not made any comment there would have been further criticism,” she said.
Those who heard his homily ‘‘would have immediately recognised it was a sincere, compassionate and heartfelt message from a man who cares deeply about people especially those and their families who have been victims of abuse by a priest’’, she said.
But Nicky Davis, spokeswoman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said: “Victims do not see this as a genuine attempt to help us.”
In another abuse case, broadcaster Derryn Hinch has revealed the identity of a priest known as Fr F, hours before a fresh allegation of abuse against him was broadcast on television, according to an AAP report in The Daily Telegraph.
The allegation was aired on the ABC’s 7.30 Report on July 9 by a man who wanted to be known only as “Bill”, and who said he was abused by a former Catholic priest in the northern NSW town of Moree during the mid-1980s.
The ABC has previously reported that the accused clergyman was sacked by the Church in 2005 after serious sexual abuse allegations and is now a prominent citizen in Armidale.
Hours before the programme went to air, Fr F’s identity was revealed by Melbourne broadcaster Derryn Hinch, who was jailed in the 1980s for naming a Melbourne paedophile priest.
Hinch was last year banned for five months from communicating in any medium after breaching four suppression orders covering the names of two sex offenders.