Heat on Doyle to step down

The Mercury/November 1, 2003
By Ellen Whinnett

Pressure continued to mount yesterday on Archbishop of Hobart Adrian Doyle to resign over his mishandling of complaints of sex abuse.

The crisis engulfing the Catholic Church intensified after it was revealed more complaints had been made against senior clergyman Monsignor Philip Green.

Archbishop Doyle, the first Tasmanian to be appointed an archbishop in the Catholic Church in Australia, was standing firm yesterday.

He again made public apologies for failing to stand down Monsignor Green from active ministry immediately, despite Monsignor Green abusing two boys.

He would not comment last night, but is expected to make a statement or hold a press conference today.

Archbishop Doyle was shown on the national television show A Current Affair last night denying there were any other complaints against Monsignor Green -- although he already knew Monsignor Green had admitted assaulting another boy.

In other developments revealed yesterday:

Two more people complained to the church about actions of Monsignor Green.

The church has failed to respond to a request by Hobart CIB detectives for Monsignor Green to be returned to Tasmania from Sydney to be interviewed, despite police lodging the request two months ago.

Archbishop Doyle approached victim Drew Murray's father Patrick on August 22, checking to see if Monsignor Green's confession was still a secret. Mr Murray has sworn a statutory declaration that the Archbishop approached him three days after the interview was filmed by A Current Affair. asking if "Drew would keep to his undertaking of confidentiality."

The Archbishop wrote to senior executives at the Nine Network including Ray Martin, attempting to hose down A Current Affair's story before it first went to air in August.

Senior Catholic layman and retired barrister Peter Roach, one of the senior advisers to the church, repeated his call last night for Archbishop Doyle to resign.

He said Archbishop Doyle was a good man, who was completely out of his depth and suffering the consequences of being unable to recognise good advice.

"The greatest problem for the Catholic community and the community at large is the failure of some bishops to deal effectively with the problems caused by the offences of priests and religious which they attempt to cover up," Mr Roach said.