Writer

Kieran Tapsell
Kieran Tapsell is a retired Australian civil lawyer and the author of Potiphar’s Wife: The Vatican’s Secret and Child Sexual Abuse, (2014), Second Edition, Updated and Expanded (2024).”
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A Clash between Church and State in Australia?
The recent appearance by retired Bishop Geoffrey Robinson at the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has raised the possibility of a clash between Australia and the Vatican along similar lines to what occurred in Ireland in 2011 after the publication of the Murphy Commission’s Cloyne Report. Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: Mental Reservation at the Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission
Current Affairs On 28 May 2015, the convicted serial paedophile and former Catholic priest from Ballarat, Gerald Ridsdale gave evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse by video link from prison. Ridsdale is 81 years of age, and one might have expected him to have some memory problems. It is Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Problem with Bishop Finn
On 21 April 2015, the Vatican announced that Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas, Missouri, had resigned. The announcement referred to the Code of Canon Law that states that a bishop who “has become less able to fulfil his office because of ill health or some other grave cause is earnestly requested to present his resignation Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Seventh Pope to Require the Cover up of Child Sexual Abuse?
In 2010, Fr Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, announced that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith would instruct bishops to report allegations of clergy sexual abuse of children where there was a local civil law requiring it. The terms of the dispensation were limited, so that if there were no reporting laws, the Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Two reports from the Child Sexual Abuse Royal Commission.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published two reports on 19 December 2014. The first related to Case No. 11 dealing with four institutions run by the Christian Brothers Congregation in Western Australia from the 1920s until the 1980s for wards of the State, child migrants and children sent there privately. Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: More Cracks in the Church Dyke?
In December 2013, I wrote a piece for this blog entitled, Cracks in the Church Dyke at the Royal Commission, which posed the question: the real issue now is whether the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, (TJHC), representing the Church at the Royal Commission, will come clean over canon law, or the dyke will be Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Holy See, Torture and the UN
On 26 September 2014, the Holy See rejected the demand of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child for it to impose through canon law mandatory reporting of all allegations of child sexual abuse by clergy. The Holy See said its only responsibility under the Convention was for the handful of children Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Catholic Cafeteria
On 29 July 2011, Cardinal George Pell gave a speech in which he accused many Catholics of being “Cafeteria Catholics”, by picking and choosing from the doctrinal menu. Having moved to Rome, he is now attending the Synod of Catholic Chefs de Cuisine to decide what is wrong with the menu at the Catholic Cafeteria, Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Holy See’s Newly Found Sensitivity to National Sovereignty
In January 2014 the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: Lawyers under the Spotlight at the Royal Commission
The John Ellis Case Study (No 8) at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse concerned the experience of John Ellis with the Towards Healing protocol in dealing with his complaint about being sexually abused by Fr Aidan Duggan. The case was unusual for its revelations about the relationship between Cardinal Pell Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Royal Commission on the Melbourne Response
Next Monday, 18 August, 2014, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse will commence Case Study No. 16 on the Melbourne Response that operated within the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne. In 1994, Bishop Geoffrey Robinson had been appointed by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference to draw up a protocol for dealing with Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Rolf Harris and the Vatican.
Rolf Harris, aged 84, was found guilty of sexual assaults on children in the long distant past, and was sentenced to 5 years jail. The judge took into account his age in determining the sentence. Many people still thought it was inadequate, and there is talk of an appeal by the Attorney General to increase Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Nestor Case
The Catholic Church hierarchy has now accepted that its attempts to cover up the sexual abuse of children by clergy facilitated further abuse. But there was a second reason for the increase in the abuse – the canonical disciplinary system was dysfunctional. It was dysfunctional enough prior to 1983, but Pope St. John Paul II Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Canon Law and the Truth, Justice and Healing Council.
In his more than 40 blogs posted on the Truth Justice and Healing Council’s web site, Francis Sullivan, its CEO, has never, until last week, mentioned any difficulties that canon law might have posed for bishops in reporting sexual abuse by clergy to the police or in dismissing them through the Church’s own internal disciplinary Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The Cunneen Report’s Comments on Canon and Civil Law
On 30 May 2014, the Report of the Special Commission of Inquiry into Matters relating to the Police Investigation of Certain Child Sexual Abuse Allegations in the Catholic Diocese of Maitland–Newcastle (“Cunneen Report”) was published by the New South Wales Government. The Report rejected allegations by former Detective Inspector Fox that there was an attempt Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The Vatican at the UN: Who is fossilised in the Past?
The Holy See has found itself before the United Nations once again, this time in relation to the Treaty on Torture. According to Reuters, Archbishop Tomasi told critics of its sexual abuse record that it had developed model child protection policies over the last decade and that its accusers should not stay “fossilised in the Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell’s “Potiphar’s Wife”
In this book by Kieran Tapsell which is to be launched on May 27 we can learn about canon law and secrecy in the Vatican, particularly in relation to sexual abuse. Kieran Tapsell has been a guest blogger on these issues on this site. John Menadue For 1500 years, the Catholic Church accepted that clergy who Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The war on drugs.
Juan Gabriel Vásquez, El Espectador, Colombia, 20 December 2013, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/esta-babilonia-nuestra-columna-465199 Summary: The so called “War on Drugs” is an American invention from the time of Nixon. It has been a spectacular and costly failure. But the Puritans in the Americas do not want to even discuss the subject. A year and a half ago, President Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Things are improving.
Héctor Abad Faciolince, El Espectador, Colombia, 29 December 2013, http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/el-espantoso-mundo-vivimos-columna-466312 Summary: The world we live in is frightening, but it is less frightening than it used to be. One of the best definitions of the word, “intellectual” that I have read is: “a person who has studied beyond his own capacities”. There are those incapable Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Two empires.
Antonio Caballero, Semana, Colombia, 30 March 2014 http://www.semana.com/opinion/articulo/antonio-caballero-dos-imperios/381891-3 Barack Obama is normally very careful in his rhetoric, but some days ago, he said something a little unfortunate. When criticizing Russia’s annexation of the Crimea, he said to the press: “We (the United States) have considerable influence on our neighbours. But generally, we do not need Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Facing prejudice.
Piedad Bonnett, El Espectador, Colombia 5 November 2013 http://www.elespectador.com/opinion/una-injusticia-historica-columna-466919 Summary: Alan Turing was responsible for breaking the German enigma code in the Second World War. He was subsequently convicted of the crime of homosexuality, and given a choice of being chemically castrated or imprisoned. He chose the former and then committed suicide. The Queen has Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Pell’s business strategy in tatters.
There was once a rich man in England who became tired of watching his friends’ estates being eaten up by lawyers’ fees in disputes over wills. So, he made a very simple will leaving everything to a friend, and then wrote a letter to the friend explaining what he wanted the friend to do with Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The best drama in town: the Royal Commission on the Ellis Case.
There is a veritable ‘whodunit’ being played out at the Royal Commission into Sex Abuse. The Commission is inquiring into the treatment of John Ellis who lent his name to the so called ‘Ellis defence’, that confirmed that the “Catholic Church”does not exist in law. If the sex abusing priest or the negligent bishop is Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The Trickle-down Effect in Toowoomba
Cardinal Francis George, the former President of the United States Bishops Conference has been described as one of the Catholic Church’s most ‘formidable intellectuals’. In the 2003 Ave Maria Law Review he wrote an article entitled, “Law and Culture”, in which he discusses the famous U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v The Board of Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. Sexual abuse in the Church – the failure of the Vatican and Popes
As with so many other things on the sex abuse issue, the Holy See’s response to the findings of the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child is conspicuous for its failure to acknowledge the central issue raised by that Committee: pontifical secrecy imposed on the Church’s investigations of child sexual abuse by Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell. The United Nations and the ‘Warts-and-all’ history.
On 15 October 2013, Francis Sullivan, the CEO of the Truth, Justice and Healing Council, the body that speaks on behalf of the Australian Catholic Church at the Royal Commission, wrote an opinion piece for the ABC’s Religion and Ethics page. He claimed that the submission the Council had presented to the Royal Commission on Continue reading »
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Kieran Tapsell: The Inquisition of the Catholic Church at the United Nations.
The Vatican’s former Chief Prosecutor, Bishop Charles Scicluna, found himself before the United Nations Committee for the Rights of the Child in Geneva on 16 January 2014. He joked that in the past his predecessors may have been on the other side of the table as the “Grand Inquisitor”. The Church signed up to the Continue reading »
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Sex abuse: the de facto privilege of clergy. Kieran Tapsell
On 29 December 1170, four armed knights from the Court of King Henry II of England entered Canterbury Cathedral. They had previously heard the King complain about the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas a’Becket, who was in dispute with Henry over “privilege of clergy”, the right of clergy to be tried exclusively in Church or canonical Continue reading »
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The Revival of Misprision of Felony. Guest blogger: Kieran Tapsell
In the days before police forces, the State in the English speaking world relied on citizens to report serious crimes, called “felonies”. The posse in the Western movies is a reflection of the “hue and cry” that citizens were expected to raise. Failing to report a felony was itself a crime, called “misprision of felony”. Continue reading »