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WA's only Catholic weekly newspaper Perth: June 6 2002 Price: $1
New Pastoral Mary Carr: faith Letter for and witness over Bunbury nearly 100 years - Pages 8&9 - Page 16
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Archbishop George Pell held a news conference in Sydney on Monday morning to refute and clarify impressions created by the 60 Minutes program on Sunday night. An accompanying news release emphasised two key points: • In the case of the two girls abused by a priest who was already in jail when he met the parents, there was no requirement. either in the letter used by Richard Carleton or in the agreement signed by people accepting compensation, that they remain silent. • In the case of David Ridsdale. Archbishop Pell repeated the emphatic denial he had made in a statutory declaration the previous Thursday that he had ever made any attempt to buy Ridsdale's silence, and pointed out that conflicting statements made elsewhere by Ridsdale suggested that the phone call was made after Ridsdale had been to the police about his uncle's abuse of him. In the same statutory declaration, he said that when he took David Ridsdale's phone call, he was aware that allegations of criminal conduct were being made against the senior Ridsdale, that they involved a number of children. including members of Ridsdale's family. He added that he had no reason to believe Ridsdale was innocent of the allegations. The text of Archbishop Poll's media statement follows (starts next column):
The pastor who came in from the cold - Page II
sponds
"Last Sunday night's 60 Minutes program once again poignantly highlighted the long term damage involved in child sexual abuse. No one watching could fail to be moved by the sufferings of the victims aid the evil of the perpetrators. "Ifirmly stand by whatIsaid in my sworn statutory declaration and statement of last Thursday - namely that I did not attempt to silence any victim or buy them off. I repeat here that the allegations that I
attempted to silence anyone are totally unfounded and untrue. "I have no doubt David Ridsdale has suffered terribly because of his experiences, but his allegations about me are wrong. in my view 60 Minutes deliberately set out to ignore all of the positive aspects of the Melbourne program which I introduced in 1996 to combat sexual abuse and to help the abuse victims personally and financially. At this stage I should correct a mislead-
lug impression from the 60 Minutes programme. When a person accepts compensation from the Melbourne Archdiocese no confidentiality applies. To suggest this is hush money is absurd. During my ambush on 60 Minutes I was unclear and imprecise on the confidentiality requirements. I over-stated these limitations. A person who chooses to accept an ex-gratia compensation offer is required to sign a release. That document contains no confidentiality restrictions and anyone who accepts a compensation payment is free to disclose the details if they wish. So how could this be construed as a cover up mechanism?
Panel
The basis of the accusations against the Church of Melbourne. and me personally, Is that ex-gratia compensation payments from the Independent Compensation Panel are "hush money". They are nothing of the sort. Hush money was never paid. The headlines in the papers are absolutely misleading. One of the foundations of the Melbourne three-part programme against sex abuse was that each agency would have significant independence. These agencies worked independently of my advice and direction. At the end of an individual case they would make a recommendation to me which I had undertaken to accept unless I had good reasons to the contrary. The rationale and procedures of the Compensation Panel were published in October 1996. They have always been available for examination, they have received little or no sustained criticism. Continued on Page 10 Editorial - Page 7
Carleton admits lie: ABC website The ABC website carries an audio recording from its Radio National progranune PM. dated 28 February this year. Ills introduced with these words on the web page: 'Richard Carleton has been a household name in TV journalism since the 70s, but today the 60 Minutes reporter admitted that he lied and misled viewers in a story about the 1995 massacre of five thousand people in Srebrenica. Under cross examination in the ACT' Supreme Court, Mr Carleton said his 60 Minutes story had misrepresented a mass grave at Preador, leading viewers to believe it was the exhumed grave of the Srebrenica victims. . . ." The address of the website is: http://www.abc.net.au/pm/PMChronoi dx2002_Thursday 28February2002.htm
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Correction
File photo: Archbishop George Pell of Sydney responded on Monday this week to the ambush interview aired on the Australian edition of 60 Minutes on Channel Nine on Sunday evening.
Last week's edition of The Record carried a story on Page One which reported the Perth liaison officer for the Australian Commission for Catholic Women. Sue Larsen. saying that it was not on the Commission's current agenda to push for the ordination of women priests, and that the Commission's biggest achievement was the network of women brought together across Australia through its 30 diocesan contacts. In fact, the comments were made by the Chair of the Commission. Mrs Geraldine Hawkes, not Sue Larsen. The Record apologises for this error.
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