The Catholic Church in Australia misled the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which ended in December, by grossly undervaluing its property portfolio, according to Melbourne’s The Age, writes Mark Brolly. The newspaper reported that the Church also claimed that increased payments to abuse survivors would be likely to require cuts to its social programmes.
The 12 February article stated that the Church had more than A$30 billion (£17 billion) in property and other assets in Australia, a figure extrapolated from council valuation data in Victoria, where The Age is published. This makes the Church one of the largest property owners in Australia, rivalling shopping centre operator Westfield.
“The Catholic Church in Victoria is worth more than A$9 billion, making it the biggest non-government property owner in the state [of Victoria] and much wealthier than it has admitted in evidence to major inquiries into child sexual abuse,” the paper reported. It said the figures raised serious new questions about the Church’s compensation payments to abuse survivors. The Royal Commission said payments averaged A$35,000 under the Melbourne Response, the compensation scheme established by then Melbourne Archbishop George Pell in 1996, a total of A$11.3 million to 324 survivors.
The Age reported that when asked to nominate a value for church assets Melbourne archdiocese communications director Shane Healy said such information was “not available”. But he said the Church had borrowed to pay sexual abuse survivors, “which will be repaid from asset sales’’.
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