The Catholic Church’s legal loophole for abuse

The Saturday Paper

March 15, 2025

By Judy Courtin

The Catholic Church is at it again.

The decision in Bird v DP has the privileged, affluent and braggadocious church publicly thanking the High Court for a ruling that pierced the hearts of thousands of survivors who were, as children, raped or sexually assaulted by Catholic clergy.

The Bird who gave the case its name is Paul Bird, the current bishop of the Diocese of Ballarat in Victoria.

DP is the pseudonym of a man who was sexually abused in 1971 at the age of five by Father Bryan Coffey, the assistant parish priest at Port Fairy.

The Catholic Church insists that its clergy members are not employees. In Bird v DP, not only did the High Court agree with this, it held that the relationship between a clergy member and the institution is not even akin to an employment relationship. As such, the church cannot be found liable for the sex crimes of its clergy members.

The Catholic Church chose not to accept the decisions of the Supreme Court trial judge and the Victorian Court of Appeal – namely, that there did exist a relationship akin to employment between the clergy and the church. Instead of practising their teachings of compassion, they instead saw it as an opportunity to mount a complex legal challenge in the High Court.

The High Court relied on the black letter of the law and overturned the decisions of the lower courts. This decision means that thousands of survivors of Catholic clergy child abuse in Australia are denied justice.

Once again, the Catholic Church is getting away with it. In the eyes of the hierarchy, the church has been granted judicial approval to avoid its legal and moral obligations to right the odious wrongs of its criminal past.

The High Court decision has cleansed the Catholic Church with judicial absolution. No confession or penance is necessary for the institution that enabled the serious sexual offending of hundreds of paedophiles within its ranks, not even a mea culpa.

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