Counselling support is available, contact Healing and Support (Zimmerman Service) on 02 4923 0636 or email healing.support@mn.catholic.org.au. Alternatively, you can contact Blue Knot Helpline everyday from 9am – 5pm on 1300 657 380 and Lifeline on 13 11 14 (24 hour support).
The Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle has a well-known and shameful criminal history of child sexual abuse amongst both clergy and other church personnel. This has been at the forefront of the region’s media for some time with both the Special Commission of Inquiry into matters relating to the police investigation of certain child sexual abuse allegations, and the ongoing Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, through which the diocese’s criminal history has again been brought to light. These formal commissions, along with dedicated media coverage and the bravery of survivors, their families and friends, have seen the issue of child sexual abuse continue to be brought into the consciousness of our entire community in the Newcastle, Hunter and Manning regions. Lina, a victim of child sexual abuse at the hands of a member of clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle, conceived a project of atonement that was facilitated by the diocese. The Atonement: Lina’s Project included a community gathering of over 500 people on Friday 15 September at Newcastle City Hall.
Learn more about Lina's Project.
Warning: Some people may find this video confronting as it contains pictures of known offenders from the Diocese.
September 2017
As Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, I have listened to people’s agonising stories of how they were abused as children by clergy, religious, teachers and others in the church. For those children, their abuse often caused fear, confusion and shame that changed who they were and who they might have become. Their anguish was compounded when they were not believed and even punished for telling the truth. And so, through no fault of their own, they were left with a great hurt at the centre of their being that they have had to carry through life. Some have managed to bear the hurt, even if they are never free of it, but for others it was too much to bear and they took their own lives. To the people who were those children and to those close to them, a formal apology by the church can never really be adequate. I understand that, but still it needs to be said over and over: the diocese apologises for our failure to protect you, we apologise for the crimes that people working in the diocese inflicted on you. We are so, so sorry that our diocese let these things happen to you.
Though it is not on the same level as the pain of those who were abused, there is also much hurt in the wider community. When Lina came to the diocese to seek our participation and support in her ‘project’, what she wanted was to address the pain of the whole community. Many people can’t get over being deceived and betrayed by individuals whom they took for good priests or religious, teachers or fellow parishioners. We have all to some extent lost our innocence, and many of us feel less trusting, more cynical, more guarded. We feel damaged. We’ve had our faith undermined: our faith in people, in the church and its leaders, in faith itself as a support in life, and even in God. We don’t want to live mired in suspicion or anger or unresolved emotions. We don’t want to stand guardedly apart from places we once felt at home in, but we’ve all been affected. What happened, and that our leaders allowed it to go on for so long, has shaken us all. As bishop, I apologise to the whole community. The church let you down, often by caring more for its reputation than for the children, and sometimes by criminal complicity in the covering-up of abuse. This has hurt your families, your schools, your parishes, and towns and suburbs across our region. We are sorry.
We can’t heal all these things here today. Some scars never heal. What we can do is come together in acknowledging what has happened and what it has done to us. If we can share the story and own the story, perhaps we can speak of our feelings with each other more, listen to each other better and support each other with greater understanding. That is Lina’s hope. That is Lina’s Project.
The Project isn’t limited to one day. The diocese has committed to future actions to see that the story is not forgotten and our determination that it not be repeated never fades. In 2018, the diocese will be consulting with survivors and the community to plan a permanent memorial. This memorial will be in a prominent place in the grounds of Sacred Heart Cathedral so that the diocese’s history of child sexual abuse and cover-ups by clergy, religious and other church personnel is never forgotten. From 2018, September 15 will be a perpetual day of remembrance in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. This day will be marked in a variety of ways, in conversation with survivors and the wider community. The diocese will also be working with schools within the region, particularly those that were sites of abuse, to plan events of acknowledgement. As a diocese, we also continue our attempts to make what amends we can, to support those who were abused and their families, and to ensure that the measures in place to keep children safe in our parishes, schools and communities are kept to the highest standards.
Once again, I apologise to the whole community for the failures and the crimes of this diocese. We are truly sorry.
Most Reverend William Wright,
Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle
September 2017
‘As a community, we have all been affected by the insidious horror of child sexual abuse, and I apologise to the whole community across the Newcastle, Hunter and Manning regions.
We will continue in our attempts to make amends for these wrongs, to support victims of abuse and their families and remain fully committed to ensuring that these crimes will never befall another child in our care again.'