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Call For Pope Leo To Issue Abuse Zero Tolerance Policy

Thursday, 12 June 2025, 4:59 pm
Article: RNZ

Susana Suisuiki, Pacific Waves presenter/producer

A Fijian abuse survivor is urging the new head of the Catholic church to adopt a zero tolerance policy for child sex abuse.

Felix Fremlin was seven years old when he was molested by a New Zealand Marist Brother at his primary school in Suva.

Although he had received a written apology and FJD$15,000 (approx US$6,680) in financial compensation from the Marist Brothers Order of New Zealand and the Pacific, Fremlin said it's not enough.

Speaking to Pacific Waves, Fremlin said culture and faith prevents many people in the Pacific from speaking out.

"It's a Pacific island thing, everybody looks upon the church as messengers of God, and so for people to talk about it... it's a taboo thing," he said.

Seeking mental health support is also a struggle for Fremlin.

"So here, we don't have any specialists where survivors can go to for counselling. The church here has offered counselling but the counsellors here belong to the church itself. So when you go for counselling, you report back to the church."

Fremlin also expressed his dissatisfaction over Pope Leo's appointment as the new pontiff, claiming the former cardinal had allegedly concealed abuse cases of three women while he served as a bishop in Peru in 2022.

However, Fremlin said the onus is now on Pope Leo to stand with abuse survivors, calling for him to enact the zero tolerance law.

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An earlier attempt was done in November 2024 when former Jesuit priest, Reverand Hans Zollner, joined abuse survivors at a press conference in Rome urging Pope Francis to apply the zero-tolerance law throughout the entire 1.4 billion-member church.

The law would effectively remove any priests guilty of abuse from the ministry.

For Fremlin, it's about taking concrete steps in protecting the most vulnerable.

"When survivors tried to seek or converse with the church, the church gives them the runaround, and always the lawyers," he said.

"My experience in Fiji is that they bring up the lawyers and then they hide behind the lawyers you know, so I wish the pope would come on this - it's just something that he can put into law that the survivors can go to, without the church giving them the runarounds."

In a statement sent to RNZ Pacific, the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference said significant work has been undertaken to "promote a culture of awareness and vigilance".

An immediate risk assessment is carried out once a complainant in New Zealand comes forward. Any risk identified would result in the accused priest to step down.

For those convicted of abuse, the conference said the policies in place would permanently remove them from the ministry.

The conference also said that abuse survivors can seek a mental health counsellor of their choice.

"If they don't have already a counsellor, the church can provide them a list of counsellors to choose from - with some or all being people without ties to the church."

Even if Pope Leo was to eventually adopt a zero-tolerance policy, Fremlin said it'll do little to restore his faith in the church.

"It's like asking the cow to jump over the moon. It's very hard for [the survivors] to come out openly.

"We're just hoping for something concrete you know, written in black and white, that states they're doing something about it."

Pacific survivors deserve more justice - advocate

A long-standing advocate of Pacific abuse survivors said they deserve more justice.

Dr Murray Heasley, who was instrumental in Fremlin's case, said the payout that Fremlin and his brother John received is "outrageous".

"It's about dignity; it's about human rights," he said.

"How can you be paying a fraction of the money to a Fijian survivor abused by a New Zealander in Fiji, particularly if you take into consideration some of the notion of the colonial background and the assumption of superiority of Western culture at the time... The colonial mentality seems to still be in place.

"If you happen to be a Fijian survivor that got sexually molested by a New Zealander, you're worth less as a human being? Than a Pasifika abused in New Zealand? Why the differentiation?

"It's absolutely outrageous and it has to be revisited now. The FMS Marist Brothers have massive resources."

The New Zealand Bishop Conference said each case that the church considers is unique and so is each response. Part of the response can include an ex gratia payment to a survivor as part of the 'healing process'.

However, they also said that "comparisons cannot be made between different cases across the various components of each process".

Last year, New Zealand journalist Pete McKenzie broke the story in the New York Times of how the Pacific was used as a 'dumping ground' for accused priests.

Heasley said it was a 'standard procedure'.

"It's extremely common to shift predators around. It was called the geographic cure. It didn't cure anything.

"The worst predators were those who were fluent in the local language, Fiji and Samoan and Tongan, because parents trusted them. They used the language to predate and groom."

The New Zealand Catholic Bishop's Conference responded with a statement they had issued last year in response to McKenzie's story.

"We were given 10 or 11 specific names and NONE had any record of allegations of abuse before they were assigned to ministry in the Pacific. It was anything but 'common practice', the statement said.

"Catholic priests and religious [orders] have regularly been appointed to the Pacific Islands to support the faith life of communities there. For many religious orders, the Pacific is part of the same province as New Zealand.

"There is no record of any of the nine men about whom [McKenzie] enquired being accused of abuse before the order of diocese appointed to them to the Pacific. Allegations against some were not received until after their death."

As for Pope Leo's alleged handling of abuse cases in Peru, Heasley said he's concerned.

"We've seen pushback from people inside the Catholic Church calling these women 'liars'. It's an astonishing thing where you have so-called advocates of women's voices, the silence of women's voices coming in behind the pope who they see as a fellow Peruvian because he has joint citizenship."

He said canon lawyer Brendan Daly has called the sexual abuse of children the greatest threat to the Catholic church.

"None of these folks are dealing with this, and even to this point, with this new pope has yet to say anything except to deny the accusation. He has not reached out to sexual survivors, and without that, he is not an acceptable pope."

The New Zealand Catholic Bishop Conference said there are many first-hand reports "including from victims and survivors of abuse" that have shared their appreciation for how well then-Bishop Prevost handled the cases in Peru.

"He played a pivotal role in having a religious community shut down - which is a rare and severe course of action," the statement read.

RNZ

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