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ABC News
22-04-2025
- Politics
- ABC News
Some Canberra Catholics anxious about future without Pope Francis holding the reins
He was beloved by millions around the world, but Pope Francis's progressive approach created some enemies among Australia's clerical elite. The late Pope was at the helm when Australia was forced to confront decades of historical sexual abuse at the hands of the Catholic Church, which sent some priests to prison. Francis Sullivan is the former CEO of the Catholic Church's Truth, Justice and Healing Council, which no longer exists, established by church leaders in response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. "Once [Pope Francis] finally understood the depth and the toxic nature of clerical sex abuse and its impact on victims … he became very resolute about the type of changes that were required," Mr Sullivan said. " He was slow to come to that, it didn't happen immediately, but when he finally saw he became very resolute about the types of changes that were required. " Francis Sullivan says the Pope became resolute about the changes needed in the church. ( ABC News: Simon Beardsell ) Many in the church wanted to distance themselves from the findings of the royal commission, but Mr Sullivan said the pope insisted on safeguards and transparency among the clergy. "The church in its culture looked after itself first, and then maybe it looked after victims," Mr Sullivan said. " It always took the view that victims weren't telling the truth, it always took the view that it had to protect its own — and Francis said that had to change. " At times, that caused tension. "Some bishops in Australia have not been big cheerers for Pope Francis, and there are others in the Australian hierarchy who have never been warm about the Pope," Mr Sullivan said. "The leadership of Pope Francis, which so many Catholics warmed to, is not necessarily the leadership that the insiders like." St Christopher's Cathedral is the seat of the Catholic Archbishop of Canberra and Goulburn. ( ABC News: Greg Nelson ) Nervous wait for the successor A nine-day mourning period, called Novendiale, is underway ahead of Pope Francis's funeral, which is expected to be next week. After that, the conclave — a secret voting practice for cardinals to elect the new pope — will begin. Mr Sullivan said the waiting period has some Canberra Catholics anxious about a Catholic Church without Pope Francis holding the reins. "I think a lot of Catholics are going to be nervous over the next weeks until we know who gets selected out of the conclave, and the tone in which that Pope wishes to communicate," he said. Prayers for legacy to live on Francis Sullivan says Pope Francis was a refreshing moment in the Catholic Church's history. ( ABC News: Simon Beardsell ) The Holy Father has left a legacy of inclusivity — the type of Pope to which ordinary people, Catholic or otherwise, could warm. Mr Sullivan said Pope Francis was "a refreshing moment" in the history of the Catholic Church. "He was about inclusion. He was about diversity. He was interested in people on the edge. He wasn't interested in being judgemental," Mr Sullivan said. "He was all about building bridges, but he went further — he walked across those bridges. "He wanted people to work out ways people could deliver harmonious communities. There aren't too many world leaders that are singing off that song sheet at the moment. "Frankly, that should be the type of Pope we always have."
The Age
21-04-2025
- Politics
- The Age
Well-travelled Pope never made it to Australia - or to his home country
His international journeys could never equal those of Pope John Paul II, one of the most travelled leaders in world history. In his 26.5 years as pope, John Paul II visited 129 countries – several repeatedly – on 104 trips. He visited Australia twice: for a multi-city tour in late 1986, and in January 1995 when he travelled to Sydney for the beatification of Mary McKillop. Pope Benedict XVI visited Sydney in July 2008 for World Youth Day, delivering mass to a crowd of more than 400,000 people at Randwick Racecourse. The closest Francis came to Australia was last September when, aged 87, he travelled to Timor-Leste, where the population is estimated to be 97 per cent Catholic, and to Papua New Guinea. The 12-day trip – the longest the Pontiff had spent away from the Vatican – also took him to Indonesia and Singapore. Despite efforts by Australia's Catholic leaders to push for a brief papal visit, possibly to Darwin, Francis' faltering health was given as the reason for not including Australia in his gruelling itinerary. Parts of his papacy overlapped with Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which heard historical evidence against Cardinal George Pell, whom Francis had appointed to oversee the Vatican's finances. Pell was convicted, jailed, then cleared by the Australian High Court, but the issue of the Church's response to clerical abuse remained in Australian minds. Anti-Pell protesters clashed with the faithful during the cardinal's funeral in Sydney in 2023. However, Francis did not shy away from confronting the issue of child abuse while visiting Canada in 2022, when he apologised for the historical abuse of Indigenous children in Catholic-run schools. 'I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples,' he said. There were more notable absences than Australia from the Pope's world travels, including that of his own home country. As pope, he never visited Argentina, the country of his birth, where he became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 before being made a cardinal in 2001. During Argentina's election campaign in 2023, the now president, the Trump-style Javier Milei, called Francis an 'imbecile' for pursuing social justice and the 'son of a bitch who preaches communism'. The pontiff later indicated he'd forgiven Milei and said he was planning to travel home late last year, adding that he worried about his country because 'its people are suffering so much'. In the end, Francis' health problems defeated his hope of a home-country visit. He never made it to China, either, despite professing a wish to do so. His trip last year – particularly to Singapore, where the population is only 19 per cent Christian but which strongly supports China's engagement in the region – was seen partly as an extension of Francis' desire to further improve relations between the Vatican and China. The delicate relationship had progressively warmed since 2018, when a series of agreements granted about 10 Chinese bishops recognition both within China and by the pope. Flying home after leaving Singapore, Francis told journalists that 'China, for me, is a dream, that is to say that I would like to visit China'. Loading Many of his previous trips were to relatively poor countries in Africa, to politically troubled nations in South America, and to eastern European countries emerging since the Cold War. Among his first visits were to Jordan, Israel and Palestine in 2014, when he engaged with Muslims, Jews and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Francis's commitment to social justice, which was often reflected in his choice of destination and for the messages he delivered in defence of the poor and of immigrants, could be traced back to his time as a priest and archbishop in Argentina. There, he became known as a 'villero priest' (slum priest) for working among the most impoverished inhabitants of shanty towns. As archbishop, he doubled the number of priests in the slums. He was the first pope to take the name Francis. It was in honour of St Francis of Assisi, a lover of the poor. He was also more than capable of taking part in world affairs at the highest level. As the first Latin American pope, Francis was considered a key architect of the reopening of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba in July 2015. Two months later, he visited both Cuba and the US, a symbolic link between the two countries, previously disconnected for 70 years. Loading He met president Barack Obama at the White House and became the first pontiff to address a joint session of the United States Congress. Francis was not a supporter of US President Donald Trump's policies and never travelled to the US to meet him. Instead, Trump and his family went to the Vatican in 2017 to meet the Pope for a short discussion behind closed doors. Photos showed a beaming Trump and a glum Francis. Soon after Trump returned to the Oval Office this year, Francis – who had earlier described Trump's plan to deport millions of migrants as 'a disgrace' – wrote an open letter to America's Catholic bishops, saying criminalising migrants and taking measures built on force 'will end badly'. 'I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church ... not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters,' he said. It seems unlikely that Francis, had he lived, would have travelled to Washington any time soon.
Sydney Morning Herald
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Sydney Morning Herald
Well-travelled Pope never made it to Australia - or to his home country
His international journeys could never equal those of Pope John Paul II, one of the most travelled leaders in world history. In his 26.5 years as pope, John Paul II visited 129 countries – several repeatedly – on 104 trips. He visited Australia twice: for a multi-city tour in late 1986, and in January 1995 when he travelled to Sydney for the beatification of Mary McKillop. Pope Benedict XVI visited Sydney in July 2008 for World Youth Day, delivering mass to a crowd of more than 400,000 people at Randwick Racecourse. The closest Francis came to Australia was last September when, aged 87, he travelled to Timor-Leste, where the population is estimated to be 97 per cent Catholic, and to Papua New Guinea. The 12-day trip – the longest the Pontiff had spent away from the Vatican – also took him to Indonesia and Singapore. Despite efforts by Australia's Catholic leaders to push for a brief papal visit, possibly to Darwin, Francis' faltering health was given as the reason for not including Australia in his gruelling itinerary. Parts of his papacy overlapped with Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which heard historical evidence against Cardinal George Pell, whom Francis had appointed to oversee the Vatican's finances. Pell was convicted, jailed, then cleared by the Australian High Court, but the issue of the Church's response to clerical abuse remained in Australian minds. Anti-Pell protesters clashed with the faithful during the cardinal's funeral in Sydney in 2023. However, Francis did not shy away from confronting the issue of child abuse while visiting Canada in 2022, when he apologised for the historical abuse of Indigenous children in Catholic-run schools. 'I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the indigenous peoples,' he said. There were more notable absences than Australia from the Pope's world travels, including that of his own home country. As pope, he never visited Argentina, the country of his birth, where he became archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998 before being made a cardinal in 2001. During Argentina's election campaign in 2023, the now president, the Trump-style Javier Milei, called Francis an 'imbecile' for pursuing social justice and the 'son of a bitch who preaches communism'. The pontiff later indicated he'd forgiven Milei and said he was planning to travel home late last year, adding that he worried about his country because 'its people are suffering so much'. In the end, Francis' health problems defeated his hope of a home-country visit. He never made it to China, either, despite professing a wish to do so. His trip last year – particularly to Singapore, where the population is only 19 per cent Christian but which strongly supports China's engagement in the region – was seen partly as an extension of Francis' desire to further improve relations between the Vatican and China. The delicate relationship had progressively warmed since 2018, when a series of agreements granted about 10 Chinese bishops recognition both within China and by the pope. Flying home after leaving Singapore, Francis told journalists that 'China, for me, is a dream, that is to say that I would like to visit China'. Loading Many of his previous trips were to relatively poor countries in Africa, to politically troubled nations in South America, and to eastern European countries emerging since the Cold War. Among his first visits were to Jordan, Israel and Palestine in 2014, when he engaged with Muslims, Jews and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Francis's commitment to social justice, which was often reflected in his choice of destination and for the messages he delivered in defence of the poor and of immigrants, could be traced back to his time as a priest and archbishop in Argentina. There, he became known as a 'villero priest' (slum priest) for working among the most impoverished inhabitants of shanty towns. As archbishop, he doubled the number of priests in the slums. He was the first pope to take the name Francis. It was in honour of St Francis of Assisi, a lover of the poor. He was also more than capable of taking part in world affairs at the highest level. As the first Latin American pope, Francis was considered a key architect of the reopening of diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba in July 2015. Two months later, he visited both Cuba and the US, a symbolic link between the two countries, previously disconnected for 70 years. Loading He met president Barack Obama at the White House and became the first pontiff to address a joint session of the United States Congress. Francis was not a supporter of US President Donald Trump's policies and never travelled to the US to meet him. Instead, Trump and his family went to the Vatican in 2017 to meet the Pope for a short discussion behind closed doors. Photos showed a beaming Trump and a glum Francis. Soon after Trump returned to the Oval Office this year, Francis – who had earlier described Trump's plan to deport millions of migrants as 'a disgrace' – wrote an open letter to America's Catholic bishops, saying criminalising migrants and taking measures built on force 'will end badly'. 'I exhort all the faithful of the Catholic Church ... not to give in to narratives that discriminate against and cause unnecessary suffering to our migrant and refugee brothers and sisters,' he said. It seems unlikely that Francis, had he lived, would have travelled to Washington any time soon.
The Guardian
18-02-2025
- The Guardian
What is claim farming – and is there anything wrong with it?
For many people, the first time they ever heard the term 'claim farming' was last week, when New South Wales police announced seven arrests had been made and an allegedly fraudulent claims farming syndicate had been uncovered. Police alleged that 'claims farmers' at the heart of the scheme coached former young offenders, inmates and public school students, on how to file false compensation claims for historic child sexual abuse while in care, then sold those referrals on to law firms in Sydney. Claim farming, a practice that these arrests have shone a light on, is legal in most states including NSW, where intermediaries are allowed to sell on the details of victims to law firms, who then make claims on their behalf. Last week's arrests were not due to claim farming per se, but allegations that the claims being farmed were fraudulent. Police will allege in court that in relation to the matters they had charged so far, the seven charged stood to make $3.75m. But Det Supt Gordon Arbinja said police would allege in court that at the time of arrest the group held another 100 applications, and the intervention of police last week prevented another $30m in compensation being paid out. In his press conference announcing the arrests of the allegedly fraudulent claim farming syndicate, Arbinja stated those charged had allegedly targeted three compensation programs, including the National Redress Scheme. The NRS was established after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as a means of providing financial redress to victims. The claims are capped at $150,000, but have a lower threshold for proof than civil claims and are far more accessible. Claim farming is not illegal in most of the country – though Queensland and South Australia have introduced legislation to prohibit it and the NSW government has a draft exposure bill seeking to outlaw the practice. Groups who engage in claim farming argue they act as trusted intermediaries between victims and a complex, overwhelming legal system and enable more people to access compensation by facilitating introductions between victim-survivors and trusted law firms. But many lawyers and advocates argue that claims farming itself is too easy to exploit, and makes it harder for genuine survivors to be believed and get justice. Someone who is familiar with claim farming is Adair Donaldson, a Queensland lawyer who has worked getting compensation for victims – including victims of childhood sexual abuse – for more than two decades. Donaldson has been approached many times by 'claims farmers' trying to sell him the details of potential clients. He says over the years he regularly received calls, often from members of survivor advocacy groups, offering to refer potential clients to him for a fee. 'This wasn't limited to one or two people. There were a number of organisations that I could think of that were doing this practice,' he says. 'What they would then do is that they often targeted lower socioeconomic areas or people … [or] our prison systems, and they would then contact these people and then engage with lawyers offering to sell their claims to the lawyers.' Law firms are then able to make civil claims on behalf of the clients – suing institutions or government departments for compensation for historic sexual abuse, for example – and then take their legal fees from the eventual payout. John Rule, a principal lawyer at Maurice Blackburn, has also experienced these offers – and, like Donaldson, he does not accept referrals from claims farmers. 'Someone who's sort of self-styled as an advocate, they go and collect up a whole lot of claims from a particular institution, say, a particular private school or whatever it is, and then they approach us and try to sell to us in bulk. We've been very conscious about that from the start, of not engaging with those sorts of people.' Donaldson has heard of claims farmers charging law firms fees of between $4,500 and $6,500 for each client referral. But Guardian Australia has seen documents from one survivor advocacy group citing fees of up to $14,000. Several lawyers told Guardian Australia they have heard from people who have been 'claim farmed' that the referral fee paid by the law firm to the claim farmer was then added to the individual's legal bill as a 'disbursement', meaning claim farmers are not only profiting from referring victims, but the victims are also effectively paying to be claim farmed. A key issue, says Rule, is that claims farming could become an 'incentive to turn a blind eye' to suspect claims. '[Claims farmers can] undermine legitimate claims by survivors of abuse, and those survivors of abuse are, by definition, incredibly vulnerable and already distrustful of the system and the abuse survivors really need a system they can trust,' Rule says. 'An unfortunate reality is that at some of these boys' homes and juvenile detention centres, they had disproportionately higher levels of sexual and physical abuse. So there are a lot of legitimate claims from there, and those ones, I think, are going to be treated especially harshly by defendants and insurers and possibly courts,' Rule says. 'So it has very real world consequences in the way that it will make the process much harder on legitimate survivors.' One lawyer, who works at Knowmore, the not-for-profit organisation that assists survivors in accessing the National Redress Scheme, has spoken on condition of anonymity about clients who have come to her seeking help after having been claim-farmed. She says these clients didn't always have a clear sense of who was representing them and how the fees work, and sometimes did not realise the claims farmer was being paid for their involvement in their case. '[Sometimes] the survivor doesn't even know that the person that seems to be wanting to help them was actually taking a cut. And I think when the survivor does find that out, they feel like they've been taken advantage of, and that those people were out to make money from their pain,' she says. The lawyer says she has heard of survivors being 'cold-called' by claim farmers asking them about their childhood sexual abuse, which they may not have disclosed to anyone before, in a process she described as being 'not at all trauma-informed', before offering to sign them up to a law firm. 'So the process can be incredibly re-traumatising for them, and then to find that the person that they were trusting had taken advantage of them and used them to make money, clients have told us how devastating that is.' Jackie Mead, the CEO of Knowmore, is aware of cases where survivors have signed up with claims farmers and been told they will win a huge sum in civil litigation, only for the lawyer to realise that such a claim wasn't likely to be successful because of the higher threshold of proof for civil claims. 'The fallback is that they then say, well, we can get you $85,000 through the redress scheme. But by then, if they've racked up $40,000 worth of legal fees, when they could have had the same service for free in terms of getting their redress payment, that's a massive issue.' Mead says she knows of cases where half of people's redress payments went on legal fees, something she says is 'abhorrent', especially given that protections are in place to try to ensure the redress payment goes entirely to the survivor of abuse. For example, redress payments cannot be garnished by Centrelink, even if the person had a debt to Centrelink. Mead says the allegedly fraudulent claims exposed by police last week will have a huge impact on trust in the system – for decision-makers of claims, survivors who might fear they won't be believed, and for public perception of people accessing compensation and redress. 'We have to remember, for so long, these people weren't believed, and so for it now to be a situation where anybody has to scratch their head and think, 'Is this a real claim or is it a fraudulent claim?' It's terrible.' In Australia, children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800; adult survivors can seek help at Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other sources of help can be found at Child Helplines International
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Yahoo
Fraud case exposes 'porous' abuse scheme issues
Police want "porous" child sexual abuse compensation schemes strengthened after seven people were accused of promoting millions of dollars in false claims. The so-called "claims farmers" allegedly approached adults who spent time in youth prisons and were former public school students, encouraging them to file false claims for compensation over historical child sexual abuse. They are accused of coaching them on making fraudulent applications through various Sydney law firms and allegedly received a benefit for referring the claimants on. Police allege the syndicate - which extended beyond those already arrested - has made claims with an overall value of $1.3 billion, many of which could be false. Detective Superintendent Gordon Arbinja said the syndicate targeted a variety of compensation schemes - including the National Redress Scheme - and stood to personally gain about $3.75 million if the allegedly false claims were paid out. He said the schemes targeted were "easy" to exploit and needed better safeguarding to protect genuine victims. "NSW Police support legitimate victims, they should be compensated … the problem is the system is porous, and the system needs to be strengthened," Det Supt Arbinja said. "The threshold to put a claim in is low and that was done for a reason and with good intentions, and it was done in good faith, because legitimate victims deserve compensation; however, criminals don't." A 55-year-old man is due to face court on Thursday charged with 21 fraud offences. Six others will face court in March after being arrested in a series of raids in western Sydney and on Queensland's Gold Coast on Wednesday. A Sydney law firm was also raided with items seized by investigators. "On a typical $300,000 claim, which is the average in this scheme, the law firm would take at least a half of that in fees," Det Supt Arbinja said. "I can't say whether they knew (the claims) weren't true, that's still under investigation (but) every law firm I look at will be thoroughly investigated." More arrests are expected as the investigation continues, police said. The claims were made against the NSW justice department and education department alleging historical child sexual abuse. NSW Education Minister Prue Car said any suggestion people were taking advantage of others to file fraudulent claims was absolutely abhorrent and the department would work closely with the police investigation. "The whole idea of having this sort of access to redress is for legitimate victims and we will protect that," she said. The National Redress Scheme was set up in 2018 following the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse to provide counselling, personal responses and payments to people who experienced institutional abuse as a child. Government departments, churches, sporting groups and others are among the institutions that have joined the scheme, which is open for claims until mid-2027. More than 44,000 applications had been made as of July, leading to more than $1.4 billion being paid out to the 15,000 applicants whose claims had been finalised. Lifeline 13 11 14 Kids Helpline 1800 55 1800 (for people aged 5 to 25) 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
