Most Rev Peter A Comensoli, Archbishop of Melbourne, said, "I am deeply grateful to the Holy Father for this gift and blessing to our Archdiocese."

"The Melbourne Archdiocese is the largest in Oceania, and we have waited a long time to have our full complement of Auxiliary Bishops to assist in ministering to God's people.

"Both Fr Nguyen and Fr Ramirez are men who have a heart for the Gospel and a missionary energy for God's people," said the Archbishop.

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"We shall return", a buoyant Fr Glen Tattersall said at the final Traditional Latin Mass at St Patrick's Cathedral in Melbourne on Wednesday evening.

The Australian reports the Cathedral was packed for the Mass - it estimated there was a congregation of around 850 people.

"They came in business suits, in strollers, on trams and in fluoro tradie gear. Most were rugged up in heavy coats against the Melbourne winter which did not dim the spirit of the cathedral lit with candlelight and optimism" reports Tess Livingston in The Australian.

Melbourne Archbishop Peter Comensoli sat in the Sanctuary, but did not address the crowd.

On Monday Comensoli received the news that the Vatican had denied his request to hold the Traditional Latin Mass at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral.

The decision from the Dicastery for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments was published on Monday on the news portal "Zenit".

"While we recognise that Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962 has been celebrated in the Cathedral Church for some time, we are nonetheless constrained to deny this request" the response stated.

The Vatican stated that liturgies in a bishop's church should serve as a model for the entire diocese.

"It does not seem appropriate for the antecedent liturgy to be celebrated in the place that should serve as an example for the liturgical life of the entire diocese" said the statement.

The Dicastery's Secretary, Bishop Vittorio Francesco Viola, signed the response.

Viola emphasised that "The Cathedral is the first place where the celebration of the liturgy must use the current liturgical books, which form the unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite".

Lex orandi refers to what is prayed.

It is often used in conjunction with lex credendi which together translated from the Latin means: "the law of what is prayed [is] the law of what is believed".

It is also sometimes expanded as lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi, which again translated from the Latin means "the law of what is prayed [is] what is believed [is] the law of what is lived".

Congregation at St Patrick's Melbourne final old rite Latin Mass

Latin Mass restrictions

While the cathedral request was denied, the Vatican allowed the Traditional Latin Mass to be celebrated at Saint Michael and Saint Philip parishes in Melbourne for two years.

After this period, Comensoli must seek renewed permission from the Vatican to continue these services.

The Vatican suggested that a contemporary form of the Mass could be celebrated in Latin at the cathedral for the group favouring the Traditional Latin Mass, potentially using the same altar as the pre-conciliar form.

Archbishop Comensoli's request, made in June 2023, came in the wake of Pope Francis's 2021 Motu Proprio "Traditionis custodes" ("Guardians of the Tradition"). This publication restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.

The rules were further tightened in February 2023, mandating that bishops need the Holy See's permission to authorise such Masses in parish churches.

Sources

Katholisch

Zenit

The Australian

CathNews New Zealand

The father, identified only as RWQ in official legal documents, had instituted legal action against both the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and the late Cardinal Pell.

RWQ contended that he underwent severe emotional distress upon discovering allegations of sexual misconduct involving his now-deceased son during the mid-1990s.

Cardinal Pell, who staunchly maintained his innocence until his death in January, had previously faced five convictions related to the abuse of the claimant's son alongside another young boy. However, these convictions were overturned by the High Court in 2020.

Seeking to absolve itself from legal obligations, the Catholic Church invoked an ultimately rejected defence, asserting that the father lacked the right to litigate due to not being the direct victim of the purported abuse.

When, in August 2022, a Supreme Court justice ruled that claims from secondary victims were admissible, the Archdiocese swiftly launched an appeal. This appeal necessitated the Archdiocese's application for permission from the Court of Appeal, which was ultimately declined last Friday.

Three justices on the panel concurred that the Church's grounds for appeal lacked sufficient prospects of success to warrant further consideration.

This aligns with arguments advanced by Andrew Clements KC, RWQ's legal representative.

Clements said legislation overturning the now-defunct Ellis defence repeatedly used the phrase "arising from child abuse" when referring to who could claim damages. He asserted that extended beyond direct victims of abuse.

Church criticised for exploiting loophole

RWQ contended that the Catholic Church should bear assumed liability for his son's alleged abuse that transpired at St Patrick's Cathedral when the boy was just 13. He asserted that he endured financial loss due to medical expenses and diminished earning capacity resulting from the psychological toll of his ordeal.

Expressing her perspective, solicitor Gabrielle Verhagen criticised the Church for attempting to exploit a legal loophole. In light of the findings from a royal commission investigating child sexual abuse, Verhagen asserted that the Church ought to prioritise compensating victims and survivors rather than evading responsibility.

"When a child is sexually abused, their whole family suffers the consequences as they grapple with things like new family dynamics, changed behaviours, substance abuse and a life derailed as a result of this life-altering crime" Ms Verhagen said.

Sources

The New Daily

CathNews New Zealand

The Ellis defence emerged from a 2007 NSW Court of Appeal judgement that prevented an abuse survivor from suing the Church because it was not a legal entity.

Survivors have long complained about the Church using the Ellis defence. In 2018 the Victorian Parliament passed legislation requiring unincorporated associations such as the Church to nominate an entity capable of being sued.

The current case involves the father of one of two choirboys allegedly abused by Pell in 1996.

His father is suing the Cardinal and the Archdiocese of Melbourne for "damages for nervous shock".

However, lawyers for the Archdiocese argued that legislation did not apply in this case because the father of the choirboy was not the primary victim of the alleged abuse.

The father's barrister, Julian Burnside QC, disagreed arguing the 2018 legislation applied to both primary victims and their families.

"What our learned friend's submission amounts to is this: If the victim of child abuse dies, then the family has no remedy, they have no one they can sue," Mr Burnside said.

"Now that's plainly wrong in our submission."

Justice Michael McDonald has reserved his decision on whether to excuse the Archdiocese.

If the Archdiocese is excused, Cardinal Pell will remain a defendant.

Pell was found guilty in 2018 by a County Court jury of abusing two teenage choirboys in Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral after a Sunday Mass in December 1996. Those convictions were quashed by the High Court in 2020 and was released after more than a year in custody.

One of the choirboys died in his 30s in 2014 from an accidental heroin overdose, having never made a complaint against Pell.

The deceased man's father, referred to in court under the pseudonym RWQ, lodged a civil case in the Supreme Court last month.

Sources

• ABC
• The Age
• CathNews NZ

That was the response of someone close to me upon reading the news that Cardinal George Pell is now the subject of civil proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court, over the same allegations for which he was ultimately acquitted, after serving more than 400 days in prison.

Of the two former choirboys who were the alleged victims in the criminal proceedings, one tragically died in 2014 having never made a complaint against the Cardinal.

His father is suing the Cardinal and the Archdiocese of Melbourne for "damages for nervous shock".

The nervous shock, it is alleged, was the mental injury suffered by the man after learning of the alleged abuse of his son, and that the Cardinal and the Archdiocese had a duty to prevent this.

Many people have queried how a civil case about the same factual circumstances as the criminal case can be brought against the Cardinal after he was exonerated by the High Court.

A person claiming civil compensation only has to prove that something was more likely than not to have occurred, rather than the higher bar of "beyond reasonable doubt" set in criminal trials.

In other words, a case for civil compensation requires a lower standard of proof than a criminal case.

Even so, I am not sure that the High Court's decision leaves much room for even the lower civil standard.

Recall that the High Court acquitted the Cardinal in a unanimous, 7-0 judgment. The acquittal was not based on a legal technicality, but rather the united view of all seven judges that there was a "significant possibility that an innocent person [had] been convicted".

This is a very strong statement because it indicates not just that the Court did not believe the criminal standard of proof had been met, but that they saw at least a significant possibility of innocence.

The High Court decision also notes that prior to his death, the son of the current complainant was asked by his mother whether he had ever been "interfered with or touched up" while a member of the Cathedral choir, and told her that he had not. This will be another significant hurdle for this case.

However, it may be that the current court proceedings are not limited to the matters already dealt with by the High Court.

According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, the statement of claim also alleges that the Cardinal "became aware of allegations and instances of sexual abuse and other sexually inappropriate conduct by members of clergy [and] failed to properly consider and take appropriate action in relation to sexual abuse by members of the clergy."

It also alleges he "took steps to avoid sexual abuse and sexual misconduct by the clergy becoming known [and] failed to report or prevent sexual abuse by members of the clergy."

The report goes on to say: "The plaintiff's lawyers cite examples that Pell was aware of multiple cases including that of Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson and Father Nazareno Fasciale, which they suggest he should have acted upon."

These matters are also worth reflecting on. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse did not find that Cardinal Pell was in a position to have acted upon abuse perpetrated by Father Fasciale.

Much of Fasciale's alleged offending occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, long before Cardinal Pell was made auxiliary bishop of Melbourne.

The extent of the Cardinal's involvement in that matter as investigated by the Royal Commission, was the Cardinal's presence at a meeting where it was decided that it would be announced that Fasciale was retiring due to health reasons, rather than allegations of abuse.

In terms of Father Searson, it is true that the Royal Commission said that it was incumbent upon then-Bishop Pell, as an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, "to take such action as he could to advocate that Father Searson be removed or suspended or, at least, that a thorough investigation be undertaken of the allegations."

However, the Royal Commission went on to say that this was "the same responsibility that attached to other Auxiliary Bishops and the Vicar General when they received complaints."

Importantly, Cardinal Pell did not become an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne until May 1987 (he was a priest of the Diocese of Ballarat prior to this) and the Royal Commission found that Searson's problematic behaviour was already well known by this time.

The Commission opined that "the matters known to Archbishop [Frank] Little by the end of 1986 were undoubtedly sufficient to demonstrate that Father Searson ought to be removed from a parish appointment and posed a grave risk to the safety of children."

Given that the Royal Commission considered that Archbishop Little had sufficient information before Cardinal Pell even arrived in Melbourne to stand Searson down but refused to do so, it is not clear what then-Bishop Pell's advocacy would have done to change these circumstances (or why he is now being sued for failing to act).

Once Cardinal Pell became Archbishop of Melbourne in August 1996, Searson was dealt with quickly. By October of that year, the Melbourne Response was in place, the allegations against Searson were promptly investigated and, on 14 March 1997, Searson was suspended from ministry, never to return.

While many at Searson's parish and school had valiantly fought to have him stood down, it was Cardinal Pell who made it happen.

The case obviously still needs to play out, and everyone is entitled to their day in court. However, I hope this assists in providing a little more context to the current claims against the Cardinal.

• Monica Doumit is the Director, Public Affairs and Engagement for the Archdiocese of Sydney and a columnist with The Catholic Weekly.
• First published in The Catholic Weekly. Republished with permission.