Hepworth has consistently maintained that resolving the question of his own canonical status with the archdiocese, as a victim who had good reason to abandon his priestly duties, was inextricably linked to his role as the TAC's primate and chief negotiator with the Vatican. In one of his few replies, Wilson accepted as much when he wrote: "I will fulfil the request to report to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith the substance of your discussions that you have been holding with Monsignor Cappo when I am in Rome in January 2009."
However, as I reported last Saturday, there was a catch. Wilson declined to put anything to Rome in writing, saying he'd speak to CDF officials personally. Corroboration has just come to hand enabling me to convey the tenor of that conversation. At a later meeting, while Hepworth and his predecessor as global primate of the TAC, Archbishop Louis Falk, were talking, the CDF's Monsignor Patrick Burke approached them.
Hepworth recorded Burke's remarks in a letter last year to Woodman. "In an aggressive tone, he complained about my contacts with the media and stated that Philip Wilson had been here recently and said you [i.e. Hepworth] were like a madman, a lunatic. He continued in this way for some time, as we walked downstairs." Woodman, although present, was not part of that conversation, but she spoke with Burke a little later during morning tea. "He asked me outright if Archbishop Hepworth was mad and I assured him he was not." On one view, all this to-ing and fro-ing can be seen as a storm in a teacup. But there is another way in which it can be read.
Pope Benedict's first major speech after his election set out ecumenism as the first priority of his pontificate. In doing so, he wasn't referring to Rome's relations with the Baptists or the Assemblies of God but to groups with enough in common with Catholicism to make sacramental reunion possible: the Eastern Orthodox, the TAC and the conservative Lefebvrist Catholics who rejected some of the post-Vatican II changes in the late 1960s and 70s.
If the Pope and the curia decide this has just been an ill-conceived clunky process leading to a personality clash between two stubborn individuals, nothing much may come of it. If the Holy See judges that Wilson has been trying, for whatever reasons, to make life miserable for Hepworth as the TAC's chief negotiator and perhaps to delay or even forestall the dissident Anglicans' return to the fold, he will have a lot of explaining to do in Rome next month.
Did Archbishop Wilson go to CDF and, instead of reporting an ongoing investigation into Archbishop Hepworth's sexual abuse claims---claims that the Melbourne diocese have accepted-- tell officials there Hepworth is a madman? I hope there is a major investigation of this at the highest levels, because whatever the motive, if this is true, it could explain a lot about why we in the Traditional Anglican Communion have been so marginalized and why even in England where there is an ordinariate, none of our priests or even our retired Bishop Robert Mercer have been received into the Catholic Church.
Interestingly, in the summer of 2010, I received a phone call from someone who like me is not a party to negotiations in Rome, but who has a personal interest in joining an Ordinariate, someone who has a blog and who lives in North America.
He warned me the "timelines don't add up" in Hepworth's sexual abuse claims.
Here's an excerpt of what I wrote at The English Catholic:
He meant well. He was deeply concerned about his own reputation being tainted by association with Hepworth and warned me that I risked hurting mine. (I do not attribute evil motives to him. I think he was woefully used frankly.)
When I confronted Archbishop Hepworth with this information, he was stunned because that point as far as he knew, only a handful of people, including Woodman, knew that Adelaide was challenging the timelines.
I am a journalist and I had done due diligence and was satisfied that the timelines did add up.
How did an individual in North America who is not a party to negotiations inside the Holy See though he has an interest in the process similar to mine as someone who hopes to belong to an Ordinariate get access to confidential information about an ongoing abuse claim and investigation on another continent?
There is more that I did not put at The English Catholic. One of my Australian contacts, a Catholic priest, told me that he heard the exact same words said to him by an Australian prelate --not from Adelaide---around the same time: "the timelines don't add up."
Was there a whisper campaign to discredit Archbishop Hepworth's abuse claims that was so extensive it even reached North America? That's what I would like to know. And where did it originate? Did it originate in Adelaide? Are we seeing a classical pattern of "blame the victim," "cover up" and "destroy the victim's credibility" that has the collateral damage of obliterating the hopes of thousands of people like myself who want to come in with our communities into the Catholic Church? Or is there another explanation? I'd like to know, giving everyone the benefit of a doubt.
I'm not the only one who was told "the timelines don't add up." The pieces of the puzzle are being assembled.
Thankfully, Cardinal Pell got involved and recommended Hepworth's complaints be taken to Melbourne, where they have been accepted.
Contrary to claims by the archdiocese that Archbishop Hepworth had not lodged a formal complaint until this year, Ms Woodman's statement said that in November 2008 he had formally requested Archbishop Philip Wilson to take his case to Rome.
"In early 2009 Archbishop Hepworth requested details of the outcome and was told by Monsignor Cappo, 'We don't write letters like that'," the statement said.
Ms Woodman said that "in the search for justice" she had sought a meeting with Cardinal George Pell that took place in April last year: "The immediate outcome was a referral to the process of the archdiocese of Melbourne.
"The Melbourne process was completed in August this year in a timely, professional, pastoral manner. The 50-page report found that abuse occurred in South Australia."
Pell was quoted last week on this matter.
Outside parliament, Cardinal George Pell called for the Adelaide archdiocese to deal with Archbishop Hepworth's allegations "expeditiously, according to the church's 'Towards Healing' protocol".
The Archbishop of Sydney, Australia's most senior Catholic churchman, said he was deeply sorry for Archbishop Hepworth's suffering and was appalled at what he had experienced at the hands of Melbourne priest Ronald Pickering, whom the independent commissioner of the Melbourne archdiocese found had abused Archbishop Hepworth 50 years ago.
Archbishop Hepworth also alleges that, as a 15-year-old seminarian in Adelaide, he was raped by the late father John Stockdale.
Cardinal Pell last night urged the church in South Australia to act on the matter. "The public needs to be assured that the matter is being handled appropriately," he told The Australian.
"Archbishop Hepworth's position and status are not an issue in the treatment of his complaint. Complainants are always encouraged to go to the police. When someone who has been abused chooses to bring his complaint to the church rather than to the police, the integrity and implementation of the church's protocols (Towards Healing in this case) are of first importance in achieving justice for the complainant, and indeed for all concerned."
No comments:
Post a Comment