Chrissie Foster remembers her husband Anthony handing George Pell a photograph of their daughter Emma. Her arms and wrists were bloodied; the tell-tale signs that she wanted the torture that followed years of abuse to stop.
“I wanted to explain to him how Emma was telling the truth - she was only 14 or 15 at the time,’’ Chrissie tells me. “I wanted to break through this clerical belief that victims are liars and were after money.
“I thought if I could speak to him and tell him about Emma and how I was a good Catholic ... I did lots of things around the Parish...that I wasn’t the enemy, and that this had happened to my daughter.’’
“It was too horrible. He didn’t bat an eyelid. There was no intake of breath. There was nothing.’’
Foster remembers Pell’s hard tone. “He didn’t let my husband finish his sentences. He’d just jump in with a legal point.’’ She remembers phrases like “prove it in court’’ or “take your evidence to court’’, and showing him the photograph of Emma was a last ditch effort to be heard.
“We hadn’t shown anyone that photo,’’ Chrissie says. “It was too horrible. He didn’t bat an eyelid. There was no intake of breath. There was nothing.’’
About 15 months later, Chrissie and Anthony found out a second daughter, Katie, had also been abused by Father Kevin O’Donnell, who has since died.
In 25 years of reporting, a few people stand out. Chrissie Foster, I’ve always said, will be the person I remember until the day I die; a mother who paid a price I can only imagine for sending her children to a local Catholic primary school.
After years of abuse, one of her daughters took her own life, and the other maimed herself.
Cardinal George Pell deserves the right, when he appears in a couple of weeks’ time, to cross examine any witness who has accused him of wrong-doing over the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuses.
He has the right, despite the the Church saying it will not question abuse survivors, to test their recollections, imputations and any dishonorable claim leveled against him.
To disallow it would undermine the foundations of our judicial system, and to not avail himself of it could undermine the eventual findings of the commission.
Why were the perpetrators consistently believed over the victims and their families?
Chrissie Foster, like so many victims and their families, will be sitting in the back of that room.
Saying sorry would be easy, because the extent of the sordid abuse that occurred inside Parish walls is now well known.
It will be easy to say that, if the Church could turn back the clock, it would handle the distraught pleas of parents like Chrissie and Anthony Foster differently. That’s a defense that doesn’t wash in private enterprise, and it should certainly not wash for those institutions - not just Catholic - that have created a tsunami of damaged individuals.
And it will be easy to hide behind the legal mantra that to admit fault would have opened the floodgates of compensation. That might be true. But it’s not right.
Cardinal Pell’s appearance before the royal commission can’t fix Chrissie Foster’s family.
But it can provide her with the truth she is so desperate to find.
Why did priests, who faced a volley of accusations, charges and evidence against them, keep their jobs for so long?
Why were priests allowed to act as character witnesses for peers, after they were found guilty? Why were priests suspected of pedophilia moved to other schools, or not stripped of the title “Father’’?
Why do victims, almost en masse, believe that the toxic criminal acts of so many priests were covered-up, at the expense of a thorough investigation?
Why were the perpetrators consistently believed over the victims and their families?
And how can so many children be irreparably damaged by the Catholic Church, including under George Pell’s leadership?
Cardinal Pell has chosen to use his right to cross-examine witnesses, as his legal team sees fit, and even Chrissie Foster labels that right fair and just.
So how will Cardinal Pell acknowledge the right of a mother, like Chrissie, to school her children in the Catholic faith, without abuse?
And how will he acknowledge Chrissie’s right to see her eldest daughter grow up? That right was stolen by a Catholic priest and the woeful response of the Church under George Pell.
Rights, like good deeds, Cardinal Pell should remember, work both ways.
For support and information about suicide prevention, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
is a senior journalist, and has worked at News Corporation Australia, Fairfax and the ABC. She is the author of six books.
