CATHOLIC COMMUNITY COLLAPSED
Still listed, under organisations as a lay association, on the official website of the Perth Roman Catholic Church (16th July 2008), Bethel Covenant Community is/has been described as an: ‘Ecumenical charismatic group seeking to live an active Christian community lifestyle; promotes the daily living of Christian community through married, single, family, youth, children and other activities.’ (http://www.perthcatholic.org.au/organisations/html/bcc.html)
But the Bethel Covenant Community officially announced its closure following an extra-ordinary meeting of remaining members on Sunday 8th July 2008. The community had virtually collapsed some six weeks or so earlier.
Bethel Covenant Community (BCC) came out of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement of the 1970s and was legally incorporated as a limited company in 1985 by Kevin Horgan, a member of a prominent and wealthy Roman Catholic family, and some friends. In 1990 they formed an additional Bethel company – Bethel Services Limited – the same four Community Elders: Kevin Horgan; Frank (John Francis) Carr; Peter Dudley and Pat Callahan, plus Kevin’s wife, Suellen Horgan, were the original subscribers and directors of both companies.
It began with high ideals of being a community of faith that encouraged growth and spiritual development; accountability and a sense of community belonging; commitment to Jesus Christ and service to society - all within a Roman Catholic environment and perspective. At the height of its popularity BCC had some 300 members. But, apparently, the last new member joined in 1999 and by May 2008 the nmbers had dwindled to less than a hundred.
A former Nestle factory was purchased in Leederville as the Centre for BCC’s activities and operations, and members were kept busy rasing funds to pay for the property, and for the support of their paid Elders.
As one former BCC member commented on the Catholica website forum: ‘Our lives were very much dominated by prescribed activities. Many of us may have begun enthusiastically making and selling lamingtons, or serving at the Leeuwin Estate, [property of Kevin Horgan’s brother, Dennis] Margaret River, concerts but after several years the tedium set in. All moneys received didn’t end up in our pockets. Much went to paying off loans for the Bethel building and renovations. Between tithing and work done out of the love of our hearts we split our coins and hard labour onto the community floor, fluffing up the elder’s lifestyles.’
(Read the rest of this forum entry – and others related to it, at http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/forum_entry.php?id=14333 – See also the other forum entries: http://www.catholica.com.au/editorial/019_edit_130708.php; http://www.catholica.com.au/forum/forum.php?page=0&category=9&order=time)
In the early 1980s the BCC had been given official approval by the then Perth Catholic Archbishop, William Foley, who also later appointed priest, Chris Ross to be the Church’s official chaplain to the Community. But leadership problems with Kevin Horgan became well-known to the Catholic Church hierarchy in the very early years of Bethel. Several sources have informed us that Kevin Horgan was actively involved in attempting to exercise leadership control and direction within the general Catholic Charismatic Renewal movement in Perth. However, widely expressed concerns led Archbishop Foley to ban the Community’s leadership from having any active or controlling leadership role in the general Renewal movement.
(Read about the early development of BCC, and its leader – constantly referred to in the past by BCC members as ‘our leader’ – Kevin Horgan – from former members at: http://bethelcommunity.vox.com/ and http://bethelcommunity.vox.com/library/post/a-short-history-of-bethel.html)
In about 1984 Kevin Horgan and BCC were involved in the formation of the International Brotherhood of Communities, and then in 1990 in the establishment of the Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities of which Brian Smith (leader of the Emmanuel Catholic Fellowship/Emmanuel Covenant Community of Queensland) became its first President, and Kevin Horgan its Treasurer. This organisation gained Vatican canonical approval through its Pontifical Council for the Laity. Kevin Horgan made a great deal of having met the Pope and was quoted a few years later as saying: ‘…whom I’ve met many times’. Several photos showing the Pope and Kevin Horgan close by circulated throughout BCC.
Groups associated with these two fraternities adopted a ‘shepherding’/submission approach which led to a series of exposures of authoritarian and destructive controlling/manipulative leadership situations. These communities had members sign ‘covenants’ as part of there membership/involvement commitment. BCC’s covenant: ‘THIS is the Covenant of the BETHEL COVENANT COMMUNITY which is made to God and one another…’ was described in its literature as: ‘a lifetime Covenant.’ Members signed up to Kevin and his community in the belief that it was ‘for life’.
In 1991, as Kevin Horgan was building up his power-base and empire, a Catholic Charismatic community in the USA, Servants of Christ the King Community, came under the scrutiny and exposure of Catholic priests and experts under Diocesan authority in Ohio, USA. The Bishop’s investigative committee discovered and reported on:
* a lack of open and honest communication between leadership and members; * control of members’ lives (whom members could date, how to raise their children, when to buy or sell real estate, and control in other areas of personal life); * elitism; * secrecy and privacy concerning Community affairs; * lack of regard for individual freedoms and personal dignity; * shunning and lack of compassion for failing to meet leaders’ expectations.
CCG Ministries began to receive expressions of concern over leadership abuse and manipulation at BCC in the early 1990s. In the mid-1990s our Director, Rev. Adrian van Leen, took some of those concerns expressed to him to Archbishop Barry Hickey. The message received at the time was that there was an awareness of concerns and they would be looked into. We never heard any more regarding BCC from any member of the Roman Catholic hierarchy – and heard of no evidence that anything substantial/serious was done regarding Kevin Horgan and other leaders of the BCC.
We became aware that some former BCC members had put some of their concerns down in writing in 2000 and had presented this to Archbishop Barry Hickey. We received several selected pages from that report at the time. Again, we heard nothing further of any action or expressed concern from anyone within the RC hierarchy – and we found out later, that none of the people involved with that report heard anything more either – though most were still Catholics in good standing and were all professional people. There were seven people involved in producing the 2000 report to the Archbishop – including a psychiatrist, a psychologist, a nurse, a pastoral care worker and several teachers. Two of the men had been former Catholic priests and one person had previously been in a Catholic order. These people were not uninformed or emotionally unstable types.
The 2000 report, submitted in August that year to Archbishop Hickey in person by several members from the group of seven who authored it, dealt with the Status of Bethel; Influences exerted over its members; lack of accountability; [inappropriate] teachings on marriage; effect upon families; sexual issues; financial situation; statements [Bethel promotion] to the public; a conclusion, and recommendations. Two recommendations were suggested to Archbishop Hickey: 1.) that a thorough independent review of BCC be instigated; 2.) that diocesan endorsement of BCC be withdrawn and the public notified. Neither of these recommendations were accepted or acted on.
The authors of the report had been members of long-standing in BCC, but had left in the mid-1990s. Having worked to get their lives back to some normality after dropping their ‘lifetime Covenant’ at BCC, they maintained contact with some Community members and heard from others who had become disillusioned and troubled about leadership abuse and left.
In spite of those expressed concerns the troubles at BCC continued to increase, while those responsible for the canonical oversight over BCC and similarly listed lay organisations apparently did nothing.
Since 2000 we had ongoing contact with various ex-BCC members, and then during 2007 we ended up with more expressions of concern and evidence that things were coming to a head at Bethel. One of the original founders/directors of the Bethel Community/companies, Pat Callahan, had become increasingly aware of the problems others had experiences, which had eluded him because of his leadership position and relationship with Kevin Horgan. His growing awareness was painful but gave him a sense of responsibility and obligation to take action. He made inquiries on the extent of the problems and then did his own review of the community. This resulted in a detailed September 2007 report, handed to Catholic Church authorities. This was NOT a report from a disgruntled outsider or ex-BCC member, but from one of the original founders and leading Elders in the Community – at that stage tentatively still in a leadership position – though increasingly isolated by the other four.
In his conclusion Pat Callahan noted:
‘Bethel is often perceived as a furtive, isolationist and arrogant organisation…I have just recently become aware of a seventy-page report, on similar matters to those raised in this Summary, which was tendered in 1994…My great disappointment is that this atrocious behaviour has taken so long to surface. Many good people have been damaged in the process. A large number have left the Community, some have subsequently lost their faith. Many are depressed and others are under medical supervision for psychological concerns. The fruits are not good!...Over the last four months not one matter has been raised with me or publicly within the Community. Lobbying and efforts to isolate and disparage those who have dared to speak up is at variance with integrity, and Christian charity, but also at odds with our Duty of Care and our professional responsibility.
However, the continuing flow of information and concern for Bethel’s people means the unsavoury environment that currently exists, needs to be confronted despite the cost. The Archbishop of Denver, Charles J Caput O.F.M. Cap.[sic. Chaput], during a lecture on 21st April this year, said, “Not to act on ourconvictions, is cowardice. As Catholics, we need to live our convictions in the public square with clarity and respect for others, but also firmly, with courage and without apology. Anything less is a form of theft from the moral witness we owe to the public discussion of issues.”’
[http://www.cam.org.au/perspectives/now-is-the-salvific-moment.html]
Pat Callahan’s September 2007 ‘Summary of Review of the Bethel Community’ had six sections: ‘Introduction; Brief Time Line of Significant Events; Inappropriate Behaviour; Coercion and Control; Inappropriate Corporate Behaviour; Conclusion.’
Pat Callahan was dismissed from Bethel and its companies on December 3rd 2007. His report had gone to the Catholic Church hierarchy, but it wasn’t until the rumblings and discontent had built up and several Community meetings held that Kevin Horgan was dismissed from Community leadership. A meeting in March 2008 became a decisive date marking the beginning of the end – but it took a long time to get there.
The Catholic Church did not act on previous reports, and did not make any of the problems at Bethel public. It wasn’t until some people went to the police to see what action, if any, could be taken against Kevin Horgan for years of sexual humiliation, verbal lewdness, breast-groping, and more, that the media became aware and made the story public in May 2008. More than a decade after the abuses of the Roman Catholic Servants of Christ the King Community, USA, became public, the same abuses (and more) within the Bethel Covenant Community have become public knowledge in Western Australia. In Ohio, in 1991, the Roman Catholic Bishop responsible for oversight of that Catholic Community organised serious investigation and exposed the abuses. – the same has NOT happened with Bethel in Perth.
The Catholic Church’s leadership did not help itself, the public or any Bethel members or ex-members - by trying to claim Bethel was an independent organisation over which the Catholic Church had no real control – in spite of the Church placing its own appointed liaison chaplain in the Community and it have canonical endorsement; in publicly focusing only on the sexually inappropriate behaviour of Kevin Horgan; in initially denying knowledge of this behaviour before Pat Callahan’s 2007 ‘revelations’; failing to mention the report and concerns expressed in 1994 by Brian Smith, leader of the Emmanuel Covenant Community of Brisbane and founding President of the Vatican recognised and international Catholic Fraternity of Charismatic Covenant Communities; failing to mention a personal letter of support, from the Archbishop, for Kevin Horgan after receiving Brian Smith’s 1994 concerns; failing to mention a young woman who, in 1994, went to the Archbishop and personally complained about Kevin Horgan’s inappropriate sexual physical contact with her; failing to acknowledge receipt/existence of the 2000 report of concerns.
Denials, lack of openness and transparency, inevitably make matters worse. They are ultimately damaging to both the deniers and those wanting the truth revealed.
Matters were only made worse in the Archbishop acknowledging some vague concerns just over Kevin Horgan’s ‘management style’; in his dismissing the young woman’s 1994 complaints as ‘a personal counselling session’ – ‘not as a formal complaint to Church authorities seeking action’, having apparently told her: ‘Just forget the past’ and having nothing more to do with her; in his admission on television that he hadn’t taken the 2000 report seriously enough and that it ‘had fallen through the cracks.’
The Diocesan newspaper, The Record, of July 9, had a statement from Archbishop Hickey of regret and apology, and a denial of any deceit on his part or that of Auxiliary Bishop Donald Sproxton in response to media questions from May through to July 2008.
During this period (May –July 2008) both Archbishop Hickey of Perth and Cardinal Pell of Sydney came under media scrutiny over mismanagement of sexual abuse issues. Cardinal Pell was being challenged about the case of a 29-year-old adult (at the time) who had been sexually abused by a Roman Catholic priest. Cardinal Pell publicly acknowledged, recently again, his belief that the priest and the young man must have been consenting homosexuals (at the time) and therefore it wasn’t really sexual abuse. His comments were contrary to the evidence and advice of his own Church investigators. He had previously denied, to that young man, that there were complaints of sexual abuse against the priest, but had that same day, acknowledged in another letter that there HAD been allegations of sexual abuse – because it involved minors.
In his statement in The Record, of July 9, Archbishop Hickey stated, of the 2000 report containing (amongst other concerns) ‘a half-page on “sexual issues” which focused on behaviour of a very unsavoury kind and “possible sexual boundary violations”. None of the matters raised in either report concerned children.’ !! (italics ours) The mention of children in this context is interesting in light of the Archbishop’s inaction in the emotional and sexual bullying of adults at Bethel.
During the July featured Roman Catholic World Youth Day activities in Sydney, the Australian organiser of the WYD programme, Bishop Anthony Fisher insensitively added to the ongoing sexual abuse controversy within the Catholic Church in Australia. Some days before Archbishop Pell, caught up in very recent controversy, expressed the hope that sexual abuse by Catholic priests would not overshadow the World Youth Day activities. However, Anthony didn’t help his Archbishop stating, during a news conference: ‘Happily, I think most of Australia was enjoying delighting in the beauty and goodness of these young people and the hope - the hope for us doing these sorts of things better in the future - as we saw last night, rather than, than dwelling crankily, as a few people are doing, on old wounds.’
His comments about ‘dwelling crankily…on old wounds’ was especially painful for one Australian family whose two daughters had been raped by a Catholic priest just over a decade ago. Both girls were physically and emotionally scarred – one of them being unable to bear things any longer and committing suicide earlier this year.
Pope Benedict XVI, in Australia for World Youth Day (WYD) celebrations, expressed an apology to victims of sexual abuse during a service, on Saturday 19th July, for the dedication of a new altar at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral:
‘Here I would like to pause to acknowledge the shame which we have all felt as a result of the sexual abuse of minors by some clergy and religious in this country. Indeed I am deeply sorry for the pain and suffering the victims have endured and I assure them that, as their pastor, I too share in their suffering. These misdeeds, which constitute so grave a betrayal of trust, deserve unequivocal condemnation. They have caused great pain and have damaged the Church’s witness. I ask all of you to support and assist your bishops, and to work together with them in combating this evil. Victims should receive compassion and care, and those responsible for these evils must be brought to justice. It is an urgent priority to promote a safer and more wholesome environment, especially for young people…’
While all caring persons can endorse the comments the Pope made about the sexual abuse of minors, by clergy and others, being a ‘grave a betrayal of trust, [that] deserve[s] unequivocal condemnation’ – what about the adult victim’s of ‘grave a betrayal[s] of trust’ on the part of Church leaders?
In the actions, behaviour and public statements of Archbishop Hickey and Cardinal Pell (and, for that matter, other Catholic Church leaders), there seems to be a recognition that sexual abuse of children is a significant issue that has to be taken very seriously and dealt with promptly and appropriately, but at the same time an ambivalence and uncertainty as to what to do with adult sexual abuse – and an apparent ignoring of emotional and psychological abuse.
Our very deep concern is that Church leaders – across the denominations – are failing the people they serve in ignoring the very serious and deeply damaging impact of psychological, emotional and spiritual abuse of children, youth, and adults. We should all abhor the sexual abuse of children AND adults, but while the media, especially, is quick to focus on the more sensational sexual abuse, we cannot afford to ignore or dismiss these other, often deeper and underlying forms of abuse. We need to remember that sexual abuse (with children OR adults) has absolutely NOTHING to do with LOVE – it has everything to do with power, control, manipulation, humiliation and punishment – these are psychological, emotional and spiritual issues underlying the physical sexual abuse.
The secular authorities have recognised the manipulative powers of people in positions of trust and authority, and therefore take stronger legal action against those found guilty of abusing such a position of trust. The fact that a teenage girl may, for example, get an emotional ‘crush’ an a high school teacher, does not justify that high school teacher having a sexual relationship and then claim it was the teenager’s fault.
Kevin Horgan may have been guilty of gross ‘sexual boundary violations’ – but he wasn’t just a fellow church member or community member – he was THE Leader of a group that was supposedly focused on serving God in the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, drawing them closer to God and helping them individually and collectively to live their lives in a more spiritual and Christlike way. He, AND some other Bethel leaders with him, have been guilty of betrayal and breach of trust and authority. They have been guilty of psychological, emotional, and especially, spiritual, abuse and exploitation. The effects of such abuse and betrayal of trust can be extremely damaging – causing everything from disillusionment to depression, and even suicide.
Such forms of abuse, and abysmal failure in Duty of Care, are NOT limited to the now defunct Bethel Covenant Community, or the Roman Catholic Church and hierarchy. It can affect, or infect, ALL churches, denominations, and other groups of people. We need to be alert to the dangers – and those in leadership need to take responsibility and be prepared to take action to minimise opportunities for abuse and exploitation of others, and to provide compassionate care and support for those hurt and damaged by such exploiters.
(Some of the effects of the damage caused by Bethel leaders are evidenced in the comments on an Internet blog that allowed people to express their concerns – some of them with extreme pain, hurt and aggressive anger. The blog forum was closed for a time, then re-activated to enable people to deal with the closure of Bethel: http://bethelcommunity.vox.com/)
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‘Integrity is the opposite of denial – it is an unflinching commitment to facing all reality and refusing to deny the parts that cause discomfort.’
(Author/source unknown)
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(First published in TAKE A CLOSER LOOK, Vol. 29 No. 3; May-July 2008)