20 November 2024

A New Zealand Catholic bishop, John Adams of Palmerston North, has denied knowing his National Office for Professional Standards (NOPS) mishandled clerical and religious sexual abuse complaints.

Adams told the press last week, “I’m not aware of any cover-ups or any of the bishops conspiring to keep things hidden.”

However, church-abuse survivors who lodged complaints in Bishop Adams' clergy sex abuse redress process “A Path to Healing/ Te Houhanga Rongo” (APTH), have reported to church authorities and to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, SNAP Aotearoa, repeated and significant breaches of APTH principles and procedures by NOPS staff.

SNAP is aware that as recent as April this year, Bishop Adams was sent files regarding the mishandling of clergy child sex abuse complaints. The files included:

1. Abandoned scopes of investigative work,
2. An independent review report upholding a complainant’s claim that investigative work remained outstanding,
3. A legal request to further investigate remaining areas identified in an independent review report,
4. Documentation from an independent law firm requiring the handling of complaints be clarified,
5. Eight other files supporting claims of mishandling abuse cases.

Adams did not acknowledge any of the correspondence. However, NOPS confirmed the files were received.

Further, in 2020 survivors filed a formal complaint with the Church’s National Safeguarding and Professional Standards Committee (NSPSC), which purports to oversee NOPS. The complaint alleged and documented administrative failures by the NOPS director to observe APTH principles and follow its procedures.

But that complaint and its mishandled NOPS cases from as early as 2017 were not resolved. Appeals to the bishops who oversee the NSPSC were ignored.

Survivors believe this kind of mishandling must be planned because “people at all levels of the Church’s response strategy are involved,” said SNAP national leader Dr. Christopher Longhurst.

SNAP alleges that NOPS and NSPSC are currently attempting to prevent information relating to sexual assaults and their own behaviour from becoming public by legal threats to complainants and the use of confidentiality clauses.

SNAP has asked the New Zealand government to criminalise concerted efforts by persons in authority jointly planning to hide cases of sexual abuse, foil investigations into sexual abuse complaints, and incentivise victims to remain silent.

According to Barbara Taylor, SNAP Aotearoa survivor-support coordinator, “until New Zealand’s Catholic bishops stop deceiving the New Zealand public and own up to their own wrongdoing and allow survivor complaints to be processed fairly, then there is little hope that their moral authority can be restored.”

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