RETURN TO WELCOME PAGE
RETURN TO VICTIMS' STORY PAGE
Nicky Davis' Letter to Pope Benedict, April 2010
His Holiness Benedict XVI
Apostolic Palace
00120 Vatican City State, EUROPE
I was repeatedly sexually abused by a Passionist Brother for six years from the age of twelve.
I was not his only victim. He ran the youth groups at his parish and had unrestricted access to
children, including evening functions and weekend retreats, often without parental
supervision.
For more than a decade the Catholic Church in Australia has been aware of my abuser, and, I
believe, aware that I was one of his victims. If they were not aware that I specifically had
been abused, the information was easily available if they had been the slightest bit interested
in helping victims. They most definitely were not.
I was too devastated by the abuse, by my abusers’ efforts to terrorise me, by my parents’
enabling my abuse, and by the neglect of my safety by the entire Catholic Community of
which I was part, to speak up about my abuse, even when I knew my abuser’s crimes against
other victims were being publicly admitted.
Unlike the criminal who attacked dozens of young girls, some as young as six years old, who
was protected by the Catholic Church in general and the Passionist order in particular, I had
no-one to help me.
The criminal offender was given every possible form of professional support, had an entire
community of brother religious to sympathise with the challenges he was facing, and was
treated as a victim, his every need looked after.
I had no counselling, no kind words, no supportive family, not even anyone to listen to my
story and believe me. I had never known an adult I could trust, and was unable to trust
anyone, unable to ask for the help I so desperately needed, unable to reveal my pain. No
wonder I didn’t, couldn’t, face my unbearable childhood memories at that time, but continued
with my painful, traumatised silence on the subject.
I had already suffered many years of extremely damaging denial of my experience from
everyone I knew. I had been selected by this cunning predator precisely because my parents’
emotional abuse from birth had left me unable to stand up for myself. These cowards
primarily prey upon the vulnerable and the easily intimidated. If a child is able to tell an
abuser to “get your hands off me, you creep”, they are unlikely to be abused more than once.
It was only when you visited Sydney for World Youth Day 2008 that I found the strength to
finally accept what had happened to me, and experience the pain I had buried all those years,
along with the unbearable memories I tried to suppress.
Your apology, which excluded most victims, tried to convince the media that you felt
sympathy for our suffering. But it also had a clear unspoken meaning for victims: that these
empty words were all we could ever expect from you.
The inadequacy of your response made it clear that you, like every other Catholic I had ever
known, viewed me as a threat to your organisation that needed to be dealt with ruthlessly, not
a defenceless and damaged human being deserving of consideration and support. I realised
you would like nothing better than for me and all the other victims to continue to suffer in
silence, never heal, never find our strength or our voice, and die off as quickly as possible.
I thank you profoundly for your cynical PR exercise parading as an apology. It gave me the
clarity to see that I was helping my abusers to re-victimise me, and I found the strength to
finally, for the first time in my life, stand up for myself.
Since then there has been much pain, and many tears. Almost constant tears. But it’s so much
better than being afraid of every human being, and being intimidated into terrified silence.
I did not approach the Catholic Church about my abuse. Only one option is offered to victims
in Sydney and most of Australia - Towards Healing.
Cardinal Pell is very proud of his Towards Healing process. And rightly so. Few other
cardinals preside so successfully over a system designed to minimise cost, legal liability and
criticism of the Church, while pretending that it is promoting justice and helping victims.
Of course it does nothing of the sort. It re-abuses victims, dismisses our suffering for the
smallest cost possible, lies to us, makes arbitrary judgements on its own guilt, strips us of our
legal rights, and demands we participate in the cover-up that is so immensely damaging to us.
Rather than submit willingly to that system, or even worse, to being treated as a money
hungry troublemaker by a pompous paedophile enabling Church official, I was finally able,
with the help of friends, to report my abuser to the police.
The police had never heard of him. The Catholic Church had made an admission of his guilt
more than a decade ago, but they had not forwarded details about these crimes to the police.
I’m sure there are many, many more abusers in Cardinal Pell’s secret files, securely protected
from facing legal responsibility.
Unfortunately this cover up was not, and still is not, technically a crime, however morally
wrong it may be. We have mandatory reporting laws in Australia relating to child sexual
abuse, but Cardinal Pell and his predecessors are very adept at manipulating their influence
over Catholic politicians to obtain exceptions from laws that apply to everybody else. That
mandatory reporting does not apply to religious organisations in NSW is one of many issues
requiring law reform.
The Catholic Church’s response to the police investigation was disgraceful, but not
surprising. Least of all to the NSW Police, who witness this same response to every one of the
many child sexual abuse crimes involving the Catholic Church they investigate.
Church officials refused to co-operate with police. The very first thing they did was call in the
high priced attack dog lawyers. They only produced any documents at all when forced to do
so by a search warrant. Other documents were found hidden in the Church roof during a
police search of the premises.
The Church had moved the criminal interstate and changed his name. They did not warn his
new community that he is a danger to children. It was only by chance that he was even found.
As a result of this convenient move, he needed to be extradited back to NSW, where the
offences occurred.
The Church refused to co-operate with the extradition. It was only when informed that the
criminal would be arrested the next day and flown to Sydney in handcuffs, accompanied by a
media scrum, that the Church organised for him to be flown to Sydney privately and present
himself “voluntarily” at the police station for his arrest.
A key witness, a Church official, was sent overseas to ensure he was always unavailable to
answer police questions. At every turn police and prosecutors were enthusiastically
obstructed, delayed or prevented from doing their job.
The Church had good reason to do so. There was very strong evidence against my abuser. He
was arrogant enough, and evil enough, to commit his crimes against me in front of witnesses.
This increased both my suffering and his enjoyment of seeing me suffer. And finally, it
seemed, was going to lead to him facing responsibility for his many crimes.
The Church’s lawyers applied to have their criminal predator client declared not fit to stand
trial. After a delay of many months, he was finally independently assessed. He was confirmed
to be mentally unfit.
As a result, the charges against my abuser were dropped just last week. And because of the
particular way in which his Church instructed lawyers chose to take advantage of that
technicality, none of his many other victims will be able to obtain a conviction against him. In
fact, if he continues to abuse for the rest of his life, no matter what the evidence, he will never
be held responsible.
So the Catholic Church’s claim to ensure criminals face responsibility for their actions is
looking more than a little dubious in light of this deliberate and successful attempt to hand a
“get out of jail free” card to a serial child sexual abuser for all his past and any future crimes.
It is not your fault that Australian law protects paedophiles at the expense of victims.
Just like you do.
But it is the Catholic Church’s fault for exploiting this loophole in this particular way.
If the Church’s application had been filed after committal, at the very least this criminal
would undergo psychiatric testing, supervision and treatment to try to reduce the high
likelihood he will re-offend. But the particular timing of the Church’s application ensured that
the crown prosecutors, under severe budget pressure, dropped the charges rather than proceed
to committal with a case they knew would definitely be dismissed because he is unfit.
The direct result of this action is that not only is he not required to be treated, supervised, or
committed, he also avoids having his name on any offender register or prohibited
employment register. So this dangerous serial child sexual abuser walks scot free with an
unblemished reputation, with no way for parents to know he is a danger to their children, and
legally able to be employed in positions with access to children. Plus certain knowledge he
can commit as many crimes as he likes with no possibility of conviction.
And all we have to rely on for the safety of our children is the Catholic Church’s assurances
they can be trusted to look after children. The very same assurances they gave while I was
being abused, and while they were conspiring to cover-up my abuse.
Why do I write to you about this matter? Because as the head of the Catholic Church you
have both a moral and a legal responsibility for the actions of those beneath you.
And because as you deliberate on your response to this issue, you need to consider the
victims, something that has been sorely lacking in the Church’s response to date.
You need to consider the views of victims other than the tiny minority hand picked to meet
you in secret. I am certain that only victims still brainwashed to put the Church’s interests
above their own, pathetically grateful to be in the presence of such a “holy” man, and unlikely
to complain of their own and others’ mistreatment by the Church were allowed anywhere near
you by the local officials organising these meetings.
Most victims do not think meeting the head of the Catholic Church makes it all better.
Personally, I would probably succumb to nausea if you or Cardinal Pell or any other senior
Church figure were to come too close.
This is how I believe the Church should respond to my abuse:
I want an admission from my abuser about the crimes he committed against me.
I want a public admission from the Catholic Church that the crimes occurred and were
covered up.
I want the criminal to receive proper psychiatric treatment.
I want him never to be anywhere, and I mean anywhere, near children for the rest of his life.
I want him to be publicly acknowledged as a child sexual abuser on an internet site parents
of young children can check if they are concerned.
I want my counselling costs covered.
I want a fund set up to offer free counselling to his other victims, where they do not have to
deal with anyone from the Catholic Church, and are treated with respect and understanding.
I want financial reparation in the form of funding for a charity to assist victims of child
sexual abuse, and to lobby for law reform.
Surely after what we have suffered at the hands of these monsters you protect, and at the
hands of the Church itself, every victim deserves that their voice be heard and real action be
taken.
Not just empty promises of action. Not just more of the same, dressed up to look like
something has changed. And not the sort of Church action that takes two or three centuries
before any change is discernable.
If you want to speak on this subject and be believed, do it through action.
Don’t allow the pampered functionaries of the Vatican to throw this letter away or lose it in a
pile of officialdom. Or ignore it as so many other appeals from victims have been ignored.
Because today the eyes of the world media are on how you deal with this issue. Not because
of a conspiracy by athiests, or Jews, or the devil. But because the media are victims’ only
hope for justice from the abusive Catholic Church.
Yours sincerely,
Nicky Davis
RETURN TO TOP