A long-awaited committee hearing to determine whether former governor-general and Brisbane archbishop Peter Hollingworth should be stripped of his position within the Anglican Church has begun in Melbourne.
Child abuse survivors and advocates have been calling for more than five years for Hollingworth – who is still a bishop with the church – to be defrocked over his handling of child abuse allegations inside the church during his time as archbishop of Brisbane.
Former governor-general Peter Hollingworth with wife Ann in 2020.Credit:Joe Armao
The hearing, being held by the church’s independent investigator, Kooyoora, will proceed behind closed doors despite opposition from some survivors, who claim to have been left in the dark throughout the drawn-out process.
The legal team representing child abuse survivor Beth Heinrich, who was abused by an Anglican priest in the 1950s, failed in its bid to open proceedings to the public on Monday.
Hollingworth previously publicly dismissed Heinrich’s claim and faced severe backlash for his comments.
Lawyer Judy Courtin argued Monday’s proceedings were in the public interest, as Hollingworth, now 87, was still receiving a substantial taxpayer-funded pension as a former governor-general, which she estimated to be about $600,000 a year.
The church’s board denied Courtin’s request but agreed to allow Heinrich to sit in Tuesday’s proceedings, where Hollingworth and the church’s professional standards committee are expected to make submissions. The hearing is expected to run over at least three days.
Child protection expert and advocate Hetty Johnston, who has campaigned for years for Hollingworth to be defrocked, said the inquiry had been plagued by extensive delays, which left survivors frustrated and angry.
Complaints against Hollingworth were first lodged with the Melbourne Anglican diocese’s misconduct complaints body, Kooyoora, in 2018.
Johnston said defrocking Hollingworth would send a signal to survivors that the church took seriously the findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and sought to break with its history of hiding, dismissing and minimising abuse.
Child protection expert and advocate Hetty Johnston.
“We’re very frustrated by the process, and it doesn’t help survivors. It hasn’t reinstalled any faith back into the system,” Johnston said.
“We needed clear signals that things are changing and instead, we’ve got the exact opposite.”
A survivor who spoke to The Age on the condition of anonymity said Hollingworth should have relinquished Holy Orders voluntarily instead of putting “victims through hell”.
“The church process has destroyed the lives of complainants who have been waiting in limbo for years to see justice done,” they said.
“The archbishop has the power to revoke a clergy licence, why didn’t he do that in 2018 with the overwhelming evidence?”
The royal commission heard lay preacher John Linton Elliott confessed to Hollingworth in 1993 that he had abused two boys.
Hollingworth, who was the archbishop of Brisbane at the time, sought the opinion of psychiatrist John Slaughter, who told him Elliott was a paedophile and at risk of reoffending.
Despite Slaughter’s assessment and Elliott’s confession, the royal commission heard Hollingworth allowed Elliott to continue as the rector of Dalby until his retirement in 1998.
Phillip Aspinall, who became archbishop of Brisbane after Hollingworth in 2022, described the decision as a “serious error of judgment”.
Hollingworth resigned as governor-general in 2003 after months of criticism over his handling of the abuse claims, but later became a bishop in the Anglican Church.
Johnston said Hollingworth’s reinstatement was a “slap in the face of every survivor everywhere”.
“The church has chosen to protect its own and betrayed the children once again,” she said.
Kooyoora would not confirm the details of the hearing, citing confidentiality requirements.
Former Anglican Perth archbishop Roger Herft was defrocked in 2021 after an internal inquiry found he failed to address child sex abuse claims against priests under his watch while he was the Bishop of Newcastle.
Gilbert Case, the former headmaster of a Brisbane school where paedophiles Gregory Robert Knight and Kevin John Lynch operated, was also banned from holding any office within the Anglican Church over his inaction to protect students from abuse.
If you or anyone you know needs support, call Lifeline on 13 11 14; beyondblue 1300 224 636; Mental Health Emergency Response Line 1300 555 788; or Rurallink 1800 552 002.
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