SLEAZY SALESIAN SCANDAL

Great to be back. A busy ten days. Darwin, then East Timor and then New Zealand for some book signings and then time with family. First time all four ageing Hinch kids have gathered under my sister’s farmhouse roof -- in the shadow of Mt. Taranaki -- for some time.

It was a time almost ruined on my first day there by some explosive, scandalous news, that a listener sent me through my e-mails.

It was a copy of a story out of Texas, out of the Dallas Morning News. At first I couldn’t understand the relevance.

The headline: Convicted Sexual Abuser and Fugitive Works with Kids under his Religious Order’s Wing.

And the first few paragraphs in the Dallas newspaper went like this:

“Frank! Frank! About a dozen children circle around the Rev. Frank Klep after Mass on one sun-kissed Sunday. They chirp his name, trying to catch his eye as he begins handing out foil-wrapped candy. He calls them by name, too, beams and hugs some of them.

Few, if any, locals are aware that the friendly priest is a convicted child molester who has admitted abusing one boy and is wanted on more charges back in Australia. In 1998, his religious order placed him here in the South Pacific. Australian police can't touch him now because their country has no extradition treaty with Samoa”

I read further with a sense of dread. Which religious order?

The newspaper then said:

“His order, the Salesians of Don Bosco, has long moved priests accused of sexual abuse from country to country away from law enforcement and victims. The Salesians, one of the largest Catholic religious orders, concentrate on educating and housing some of the world's most needy and vulnerable children.”

I know. In East Timor, only a week or so ago, I saw their work. I slept at their mission. Visited orphanages. Broke bread with the Brothers. And now feel betrayed.

The sadness that a few rotten apples had hurt people doing genuinely good work for poor kids then turned to anger when I read some of the comments from some internationally influential Salesian leaders. I’ve taken to calling them “Sleazian”.

I do believe that some powerful people in the order have adopted a policy of not cooperating with law enforcement agencies investigating sex abuse allegations.

Salesian Cardinal Oscar Rodríguez of Honduras, a leading candidate to succeed Pope John Paul II. Said: “"For me it would be a tragedy to reduce the role of a pastor to that of a cop. I'd be prepared to go to jail rather than harm one of my priests." Suffer little children.

Salesian officials in Costa Rica and Chile are facing criminal complaints, accused of protecting priests who were shuffled across international borders. A judge in Chile is reviewing whether there is enough evidence to try a Salesian bishop on obstruction of justice charges, which would be the first such prosecution of a Catholic leader anywhere.

In the case of one priest from Peru, his superiors ignored a church panel's 1995 demand that he have no contact with children, as well as Chicago police's subsequent request to question him.

Even the Rev. Pascual Chavez, before he became the Salesians' worldwide leader in Rome, kept an admitted molester in the ministry in Mexico.

The man who triggered the latest scandal, Father Klep, was deported from Samoa after the story broke and is now behind bars, awaiting trial back here in Melbourne.

Several other accused priests have been operating in places like Samoa and Fiji.

And how about the self-serving mealy-mouthed rubbish from the Salesian’s Australian head, Ian Murdoch? He was quoted as saying that Moa Moa Theological College in Samoa was “certainly not a glamorous location”. What’s that got to do with anything? And that Father Klep’s activities were administrative – which is demonstrably not true.

I feel sickened and betrayed. And I feel for those kids here and abroad.

And for the hard-working brothers. But not for their superiors who put their child-molesting priests and their Order above decency and the law.

Ironically, I got back to work today and in the mail was a Certificate thanking me, on behalf of the Salesians, for helping with their fund-raising.

It isn’t something that I’ll be hanging on my wall.

Friday, June 18, 2004

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2004