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No election in Newcastle: The Church of England Newspaper, May 5, 2013 May 5, 2013

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The Rt Rev Kay Goldsworthy

The Assistant Bishop of Perth’s bid to become the first woman elected to the episcopate in the Anglican Church of Australia has fallen short as the Diocese of Newcastle failed to elect a new bishop at its 12-14 April 2013 meeting of synod.

The Rt. Rev. Kay Goldsworthy was among five nominees that included two local clergy and the Assistant Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn Dr Stephen Pickard and Dr Peter Stuart Assistant Bishop of Newcastle to succeed Bishop Brian Farran. Four women priests have been appointed assistant bishops in Australia—Perth, Melbourne, Canberra & Goulburn and Brisbane – but none have been elected.

In a note to the diocese after the election, Dr. Stuart said: “sometimes the Synod elects quickly and sometimes the process takes time. Synod elected Bishops Farran (2005) and Holland (1977) in one sitting. Synod elected Bishop Herft (1992) over two Synod sessions and refereed the decision to elect a bishop in 1972 to the Diocesan Council which elected Bishop Shevill.”

The Synod “resolved to begin the process afresh” he said, though the candidates may place their names in nomination a second time.

Diocese reviews plan to make redudant half its city parishes: The Church of England Newspaper, January 20, 2013, p 6. January 25, 2013

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The Diocese of Newcastle (Australia) has begun a consultation on re-organizing the diocese, with one proposal making redundant nine of the city’s 15 Anglican churches.

A copy of the draft report leaked to the Newcastle Herald last month recommends closing the congregations due to falling attendance and rising costs.  Several of the congregations are in areas that have seen a shift in population with a flight to the suburbs.

Nine congregations would be closed, and the remaining seven reorganized into “tiers”. Tier-one churches are churches with a congregation of more than 450 and capable of sustaining a ministry and administration team, tier-two churches have a congregation of more than 250 people with two full-time staff and tier-three churches have more than 150 members and one staff member.

‘‘Churches falling below these benchmarks may not be sustainable in the longer term,’’ the report stated.  Only one parish, Christ Church Cathedral, with an average Sunday attendance of 250, would qualify as a tier one church under the scheme.

Selling redundant building and redeploying assets to serve middle class families with children was a more rational use of church assets, the report said. ‘‘The opportunity for the Deaneries lies in a consolidation of the wealth of resources to help tap into the emerging young professional class of families and couples.’’

However, the Assistance Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt. Rev. Peter Stuart, said the leak of the report was unfortunate as it gave the impression he proposals were diocesan policy. The report “does not represent the views of the Diocese but contains preliminary data which will be the subject of consultation in parishes beginning in January,’’ the bishop said.

In 2010 the diocese launched a five year plan to revitalize the diocese, updating the way it undertakes mission and ministry in the Twenty-first century.

Appeals court doubles ex-youth worker’s jail time: The Church of England Newspaper, October 6, 2012 p 6. October 11, 2012

Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.
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The New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal has doubled the jail sentence of a former youth worker of the Diocese of Newcastle following an appeal by prosecutors.

In April the Director of Public Prosecutions in Newcastle, Australia announced his intention to appeal the sentence of James Michael Brown, 60, a former youth work and member of the staff of St Alban’s Boys’ Home in Aberdare. Brown had pled guilty to charges that he molested 13 boys aged 11 to 17 between 1974 to 1996, committing 38 counts of sodomy and 60 indecent assaultss. On 2 March 2012 the East Maitland District Court sentenced him to a term of imprisonment of from six to ten years.

On 18 Sept a three-judge appeals court panel doubled Brown’s sentence to a term of 12 to 20 years imprisonment. The original sentence had been “manifestly inadequate to reflect the seriousness of the offending over 22 years upon 20 victims,” the judgment said.

In a statement released after Mr. Brown’s arrest in 2010, Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran confirmed he had worked for the diocese in the 1970s and early 1980s in a variety of duties, including youth work and as a carer at the St Alban’s Home.  The diocese had assisted the police with their inquiries and was ‘‘strongly committed to addressing the issue of current and historical child sexual abuse in the church,” the bishop said.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

Newcastle dean defrocked: The Church of England Newspaper, September 16, 2012 p 7. September 20, 2012

Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.
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Graeme Lawrence

The Bishop of Newcastle (Australia) has defrocked three priests for misconduct, including the former Dean of Newcastle, the Very Rev. Graeme Lawrence.

On 10 September 2012 Bishop Brian Farran announced he had accepted the recommendation of the diocesan Professional Standards Board and removed Dean Lawrence, the Rev. Bruce Hoare and the Rev. Andrew Duncan from the ministry.  The Rev. Graeme Sturt was suspended from the ministry for five years, while cathedral organist (and Dean Lawrence’s partner) Gregory Goyette was banned from working in Anglican churches.

“There will be people in Newcastle who will be extraordinarily angry with me, but unfortunately the processes must be followed,” Bishop Farran told the ABC. “The Professional Standards Board considered some very disturbing material and determined that some of the respondents engaged in sexual misconduct, including misconduct when the complainant was a child,” he said.

The five men had been brought up on charges before the Professional Standards Board for sexual abuse and misconduct and on 15 Dec 2010 the board found that Dean Lawrence and Mr. Goyette had engaged in sexual relations with a 17 year old man at a church camp in 1984, and that Mr. Sturt had observed the act and recommended their dismissal.

Dean Lawrence and Mr. Sturt asked the New South Wales Supreme Court to review the proceedings, charging the standards board failed to observe procedural fairness.

On 27 April 2012 NSW Justice John Sackar held the civil courts did not have the authority to intervene in the church’s internal deliberations by issuing an order granting a permanent stay on the proceedings of the standards board, as the standards board was not a statutory tribunal subject to government oversight.  His ruling dismissing the cleric’s appeal did not address the merits of the charges of abuse brought before the standards board, but held the board’s proceedings had not been arbitrary or capricious.

Dean Lawrence, who served as Dean of Newcastle for 25 years until his retirement in 2008, was a member of the Anglican Church of Australia General Synod Standing Committee task force that in 2003 created the recommendations for the current professional standards proceedings.

The 2003 Sexual Abuse Working Group recommended that the church change clergy disciplinary proceedings from an adversarial procedure involving a prosecution for an offence before a tribunal, to panel review process that looked at the fitness of the church worker to hold office.  The Standing Committee subsequently accepted these recommendations, which were subsequently adopted by the 2004 General Synod.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

57 Communists – McCarthyism from The Australian: Get Religion, September 10, 2012 September 11, 2012

Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Get Religion.
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I have in my hand 57 cases of individuals who would appear to be either card-carrying members or certainly loyal to the Communist Party, but who nevertheless are still helping to shape our foreign policy.

One thing to remember in discussing the communists in our government is that we are not dealing with spies who get 30 pieces of silver to steal the blueprints of new weapons. We are dealing with a far more sinister type of activity because it permits the enemy to guide and shape our policy. …

This brings us down to the case of one Alger Hiss, who is important not as an individual anymore but rather because he is so representative of a group in the State Department. …

Joseph R. McCarthy (R-Wisc.) Congressional Record, 81st Congress, Second Session, Vol. 96, Part 2, 1954-1957.

One month after Alger Hiss was convicted of perjury, Senator Joseph McCarthy began his now famous series of speeches on Communist infiltration of the U.S. government. He told a Wheeling, West Virginia Republican Women’s Club there were 57 Communist spies in the State Department, repeating this charge in a speech to the Senate on 20 Feb 1950.

Exaggeration, hyperbole and guilt by association were among the tools used by Sen. McCarthy in achieving his political ends — and he was also helped by the fact that there had been Communist spies in the U.S. government — Alger Hiss being one.

My mind turned to Joseph McCarthy and McCarthyism as I read a story this morning in The Australian, the largest daily newspaper in Australia and a part of the Rupert Murdoch media empire. The article entitled “Fears Anglican abuse linked to Catholics” is filled with exaggeration, hyperbole, guilt by association and the omission of key facts. But yes, there are abusers in this case — though not 57 of them.

The news behind this article is the September 2012 announcement from the Anglican bishop of the Diocese of Newcastle, Brian Farran. Acting upon the recommendation of the diocesan professionals standards board he had defrocked three clergy, suspended one priest for five years, and banned a lay employee from further employment in the church for having engaged in sexual misconduct with a teenaged boy.

Here is how The Australian reports this story:

NSW police are investigating allegations four Anglican priests, including the former dean of Newcastle, had sex or were involved in group sex sessions with a teenage boy aged as young as 14.

The establishment of the inquiry, which was referred to police by the church itself, means detectives are now involved in two separate investigations into alleged child abuse by church officials in Newcastle during the 1970s and 80s. The second, Strike Force Georgiana, is investigating the Catholic Church and has charged six priests with pedophile abuse.

While neither police investigation is looking specifically at any connection between members of the two churches allegedly involved in pedophile abuse, detectives believe such relationships may exist. One source within the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle said: “It’s possible there are links. There’s no strong evidence of it, but it’s possible …

“There’s certainly been a strong network up here and they infiltrated the church.”

It is not suggested any of the four priests currently under investigation were involved.

The article then goes into details of the abuse, quoting graphic extracts from the professional standards report. This is followed by:

Each of the four priests has previously denied the allegations against them while a previous police inquiry was suspended after the state Director of Public Prosecutions found there was insufficient evidence to lay charges. Mr Goyette could not be contacted yesterday.

And closes with a statement from the unnamed victim:

In a written statement, M said: “Making my complaint and having it heard has been a long and difficult journey. “I urge anybody else who has had similar experiences to speak out.”

What is wrong with this story? Where is the exaggeration, hyperbole, guilt by association, and omission of facts? Let me start off by saying I have been following this closely for two years and have written a half dozen articles on this story. So I come to this story encumbered with a degree of knowledge.

Let us begin with the lede. It reports that police are investigating the four Anglican clergy for child abuse — and they may be part of a clergy pedophile ring that includes six Catholic priests who are suspected abusers. And then we have an unnamed source within the Diocese of Newcastle saying that it might very well be possible that there is a clergy pedophile ring involving priests from the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Newcastle-Maitland

But then again, the third and fifth paragraphs tells us that there is no evidence of a clergy pedophile ring and the police had investigated the four Anglican clergy once already and had taken no action.

And — the Catholic Church has nothing to do with the actions of the Anglican clergy. Does The Australian work on the principle that any abuse story by any cleric must somehow be tied into the Catholic abuse scandal? As the story states there is no link between the Anglicans and Catholics, what else is this but Catholic-bashing?

What is omitted from this story are several key facts that provide context for this story. Two of the clergy and the lay employee — a cathedral organist — had filed a civil suit that was heard by the New South Wales Supreme Court. They argued the professional standards board process violated natural justice and their due process rights. Supporters of the accused have brought Bishop Farran up on charges for the way he has handled this case. The diocese also halted disciplinary proceedings for over a year while this issue was taken through the civil courts and has defrocked the accused clergy now that the Supreme Court has held that it will not intervene in the church’s internal disciplinary proceedings.

There is omission of the fact that the lay employee, Gregory Goyette — the former organist of the Anglican Cathedral in Newcastle — and the most prominent of the accused, Graeme Lawrence, the former dean of the cathedral are same-sex partners. What we have are five gay men (and Angl0-Catholics) being accused of being part of a pedophile ring by persons unknown. Is it because they are gay men and hence potential pedophiles? That is what I hear in the unnamed quotation in the lede.

By raising the spectre of a pedophile ring and omitting the legal battles and questions about probity of the professional standards board’s actions, The Australian crosses a line. Whether this is a subtle form of gay bashing (“Well, we know that all Anglo-Catholics are like that don’t we”, wink wink) or a case of improving a story — sexing it up — is hard to tell. But to me this smells bad.

One of the odd things about this is that Lawrence, who served as Dean of Newcastle for 25 years until his retirement in 2008, was a member of the Anglican Church of Australia General Synod Standing Committee task force that in 2003 created the recommendations for the current professional standards proceedings.

He was a member of the 2003 Sexual Abuse Working Group that recommended that the church change the clergy disciplinary proceedings from an adversarial procedure involving a prosecution for an offense before a tribunal, to panel review process that looked at the fitness of the church worker to hold office. His complaint to the Supreme Court was that he never had an opportunity to face his accusers or dispute the charges — and now he has been deposed by the process he helped create.

Also — here is what I am not saying. I am not excusing or condoning the behavior described in this article.

There are evil people in this world. Some of the clergy sexual abuse stories I have covered have sickened me, while stories on the cover up of abuse have left me ashamed. Yet in the evil and sickness that I have seen, I am always mindful that the perpetrators of crimes are still human beings — and deserve to be treated with fairness and dignity — even if they never showed this compassion to their victims.

In writing clergy abuse articles there is a temptation to paint the abuser in the blackest of terms. Monster A is as bad as Monster B who is just short of being another Charles Manson. Yet there needs to be nuance and clarity in reporting on these cases so that the truth can be told.

The bottom line in this article is that the whole truth has not been told by The Australian. It throws in a gratuitous and unproven assertion of a pedophile ring, omits important facts that provide context to the case, takes an uncalled for swipe at the Catholic Church, and relies upon an unnamed sources to make its most important point. This is not the way to write a newspaper story. It stinks.

First printed in GetReligion.

Abuse inquiry for Melbourne: The Church of England Newspaper, May 6, 2012 p 7. May 14, 2012

Posted by geoconger in Abuse, Anglican Church of Australia, Church of England Newspaper.
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The premier of Victoria has launched a parliamentary inquiry into the handling of sexual abuse complaints lodged against churches.  The 17 April 2012 press statement said “a focus of the inquiry will be on identifying reforms that can and should be put in place to better protect children and ensure that instances of abuse are responded to properly and effectively. In doing so, the inquiry will have the power to consider evidence of past policies, practices and abuse.”

The announcement said the Victoria Coalition government had “decided to establish the inquiry after giving careful consideration to the report and recommendations” the Protecting Victoria’s Vulnerable Children Inquiry.  “It is clear that there have been a substantial number of established complaints of sexual abuse of children by those who have taken advantage of positions of authority. This abuse has had traumatic consequences for victims and their families.”

The Diocese of Melbourne said it would give the inquiry its full cooperation and welcomed “this step to provide the community with confidence that churches and religious organisations will handle allegations of abuse with the utmost seriousness and concern, and with the best possible practices, policies and protocols for handling allegations of abuse, and for providing appropriate care for the victims of abuse.”

Prosecutors have lodged an appeal against the ten year term of imprisonment sentence handed down to a former church youth worker in Australia.

Last month the Director of Public Prosecutions in Newcastle, Australia announced his intention to appeal the sentence of James Michael Brown, 60, a former youth work and member of the staff of St Alban’s Boys’ Home in Aberdare, he pled guilty to charges that he molested 13 boys aged 11 to 17 from 1974 to 1996.  The indictment includes 38 charges of sodomy and 60 indecent assault charges.

In a statement released after Mr. Brown’s in 2010, Newcastle Bishop Brian Farran confirmed Mr. Brown had worked for the diocese in the 1970s and early 1980s in a variety of duties, including youth work and as a carer at the St Alban’s Home.  The diocese had assisted the police with their inquiries and was ‘‘strongly committed to addressing the issue of current and historical child sexual abuse in the church,” the bishop said.

A hearing has been scheduled for August to review the sentence.

First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

Newcastle bishop’s grave restored: The Church of England Newspaper, March 23, 2012 p 7. March 28, 2012

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Bishop Martin at the refurbished tomb of his predecessor Bishop Arthur Lloyd. Photo: Michael Young

The Bishop of Newcastle, the Rt. Rev. Martin Wharton, has rededicated the grave of his predecessor, the Rt. Rev. Arthur Lloyd, 3rd Bishop of Newcastle, after it was rediscovered overgrown and dilapidated in a closed churchyard.

On 11 March 2012, Bishop Wharton accompanied by the parish vicar, the Rev. Catherine Pickford, and members of the congregation of St James Church, Benwell, Newcastle led the service for Bishop Lloyd, who died in 1907 at the age of 63. In accordance with his wishes, the bishop was buried at St James where had served as vicar.

In the late 1960’s the church yard was closed for new burials and the grave was lost from memory. Three years ago a group of volunteers from the St James Heritage and Environment group were cleaning the churchyard and came across the memorial head stone. The cross had become detached and lay some distance from the grave, while the lead lettering on the headstone was no longer present and the stone chipped.

A restoration team from Architectural Conservators under the direction of local architect Cyril Winskell restored the memorial by pinning the cross to the head stones, repairing the chipped granite and running lead into the lettering.

Arthur Thomas Lloyd was born in Berkshire in 1844 and after ordination he served as Vicar of Aylesbury and later of Newcastle, based at St Nicholas’ Church which was to become the City’s Cathedral on the formation of the Diocese of Newcastle in 1882. Appointed Suffragan Bishop of Norwich, Bishop Lloyd was translated to Newcastle in 1903. A statement released by the diocese said: “Following his unexpected death in London on the 29 May 1907, his funeral on the 3 June was reported at the time to have attracted large crowds of mourners, reflecting his reputation as a good, modest and sincere man whose love for Newcastle was returned by its people.”

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Motion denied in the Dating Game lawsuit: The Church of England Newspaper, Oct 14, 2011 p 7. October 18, 2011

Posted by geoconger in Anglican Church of Australia, Canon Law, Church of England Newspaper.
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First printed in The Church of England Newspaper.

The New South Wales Supreme court has rejected a bid by a former Diocese of Newcastle priest to compel the Diocesan Professional Standards Board to turn over a transcript and documents used in a hearing that ruled he be removed from the ministry.

Newcastle District Court Judge Margaret Sidis dismissed the motion to produce documents of John Gumbley and ordered the former priest to pay costs after she ruled on Sept 28 that he had failed to present a case to the court.

In August, Mr. Gumbley charged Bishop Brian Farran and the Professional Standards Board with using unlawful and immoral means to remove him from the ministry. In May 2010 the bishop defrocked Mr. Gumbley after the board found he had engaged in misconduct by consummating a sexual relationship with a member of his congregation. The 40-year-old unmarried clergyman had protested his innocence, but his veracity was questioned after the board reviewed journals that chronicled his private life.

Mr. Gumbley charged the diaries had been stolen and should not have been used in evidence against him. The Bishop conceded the diaries had been unlawfully downloaded from the priest’s computer by a spurned lover who had handed them over to the Diocese. But the bishop defended the propriety of using them in an ecclesiastical trial.  However, the solicitor for the diocese, told the court the “stolen” reference was “an allegation, not a fact,” according to a report printed in the Newcastle Herald..

Mr. Gumbley’s solicitor told the court her client needed the documents to determine whether the professional standards board acted improperly.  The court said it was “not going to allow this to be a fishing expedition” and rejected the motion.