Australian Cleric Reopens Sex Abuse Probe

Australia's top Roman Catholic cleric has reopened an investigation into a 25-year-old sexual abuse case, raising a scandal two days before Pope Benedict XVI arrives for a visit.

Cardinal George Pell, the archbishop of Sydney, referred the case to an independent panel, the church said in a statement late Thursday, after nearly a week of media reports that questioned Pell's earlier handling of the case.

Pell came under fire earlier this week for a 2003 letter he sent to Anthony Jones in which he dismissed Jones' complaint of rape against Father Terrence Goodall despite a church investigation that upheld the allegations.

Pell said Tuesday that his 2003 letter was "badly worded" but stood by his conclusion that no rape had occurred. He said he based his decision on Jones' age at the time of the alleged rape - he was 29 - and Goodall's insistence that the act had been consensual.

Jones later took his complaint to criminal court, and in 2005 Goodall pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of indecent assault but served no time in prison. The church removed him as a priest.

But Australian Broadcasting Corp. television on Wednesday broadcast police phone taps that recorded Goodall saying a sexual encounter with Jones was not consensual, adding to the pressure on Pell.

The new church investigation would look into the recently released tapes to determine whether Goodall may in fact have raped Jones. Goodall has not spoken publicly about the scandal and was not available for comment, with his whereabouts unknown.

"Although the complaints of Mr. Anthony Jones have been dealt with by the Church, the criminal court and the civil court, out of consideration for Mr. Jones, Cardinal George Pell has formally referred the matters raised this week to an independent consultative panel established under Towards Healing protocols," the church's statement said.

Towards Healing is a church initiative to address sexual abuse.

The panel would include a senior priest, a retired state supreme court judge, and "prominent lay people" in the law, business and psychiatry fields, the church said.

Jones, now 54, told the church in 2002 that he was sexually abused by Goodall 20 years previously as a young parishioner. He also filed a civil suit.

Jones' lawyer, Peter Karp, was critical of the new panel investigation, saying it was just "another in-house look at Tony's matters."

Karp said the abuse case against Goodall had been going for too long, and his client wanted "resolution now."

"If we just go back to where he was at the start before those letters were sent, what he wanted then (was) just a small amount of compensation, a letter of apology, acknowledgment of the wrong that's done to him," Karp said.

The archbishop said this week that civil claims by Jones were resolved "by mutual consent" in the Supreme Court two weeks ago. He did not give details.

Pell said the church was willing to offer compensation and counseling to Jones, but not the more than US$3 million he had asked for.

The latest church scandal in Australia comes ahead of the arrival of Pope Benedict - and an expected 200,000 pilgrims - in Sydney for World Youth Day from July 15-20.

Pell said Monday that the pope was likely to apologize to victims of sexual abuse during his visit to Australia, as he did earlier this year in the United States.

Clergy sex abuse, some of it dating back more than 50 years, has surfaced in high-profile cases during the past couple of decades and has become a public issue in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia and elsewhere.

Support groups for victims of church abuse in Australia, whose numbers are not known but who activists say are in the thousands, have demanded the pope make a full and open apology for clergy abuse and do more to compensate victims and prevent future abuse.