Sarah McMillan/cvnznews.com
A survivor‑advocacy network says the Catholic Church’s claims of a “positive culture shift” in safeguarding do not match the lived reality of people who report abuse, raising deeper questions about institutional accountability and the moral duty to protect the vulnerable.
SNAP Aotearoa New Zealand — a survivor‑led organisation supporting people abused by clergy and religious personnel — says members continue to encounter delays, dismissals and legal pushback when approaching the Church’s National Office for Professional Standards (NOPS). NOPS is the Catholic body responsible for safeguarding policy and coordinating responses to complaints of clerical and religious sexual abuse.
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Survivors Say the System Still Fails Them
Concerns intensified after Wellington Archbishop Paul Martin declined to uphold a complaint alleging a cover‑up in the Hamilton Diocese, citing destroyed Church records. A trustee of the survivor network, Richard van der Hulst, says the decision reflects a familiar pattern.
“Stop congratulating yourselves and start listening to survivors,” he said.
His comments follow a CathNews report in which the Church’s safeguarding office described its work as evidence of a “positive culture shift”, claiming conversations were now “warm, open and focused on support”.
People who have engaged with the Catholic watchdog say that is not what they experience.
Safeguarding Is Proven by Outcomes, Not Reviews
The Church’s professional standards body points to 115 Catholic entities undergoing safeguarding reviews on a three‑year cycle. But the survivor organisation says the number of reviews completed does not show whether people are actually being protected.
“A Church can have impeccable policies and endless reviews and still fail the people standing in front of it,” said survivor‑advocate Mary Speller.
“For survivors, safeguarding is not measured by training sessions or paperwork. It is measured by what happens when someone actually comes forward.”
Questions Over Independence
The advocacy group also raises concerns about the independence of the Church’s oversight structures. Auckland lawyer Philip Hamlin chairs both the National Safeguarding Committee — which oversees the Church’s safeguarding office — and the committee responsible for NOPS itself. NOPS Director Virginia Noonan also sits on both bodies.
“How can anyone have confidence in independence when the people responsible for oversight also hold positions within the governance structures they are meant to monitor?” Speller said.
The organisation also notes that a previous safeguarding standard requiring Church entities to report allegations of sexual abuse to police has been removed.
“Why would it do that?” Speller asked. “If safeguarding is about protecting people, this does the opposite.”
Survivors Say They Are Met With Lawyers, Not Support
Some complainants say they have encountered lawyers acting for the Church’s internal safeguarding arm rather than the “compassion, respect and fairness” the Church says survivors can expect.
Catholic theologian Dr Christopher Longhurst, who made a complaint through the professional standards process, said he received correspondence from a lawyer acting for the safeguarding office after challenging delays in investigative work.
He described the correspondence as “hostile and obstructive”, with elements he considered “threatening in tone”.
Two complaints have since been filed with the New Zealand Law Society concerning lawyers involved in safeguarding matters.
“This is not what person‑centred safeguarding looks like,” van der Hulst said. “It is safeguarding theatre.”
A Call for Transparency and Moral Clarity
The survivor network is calling for the Catholic safeguarding office to publish:
- findings and outcomes of its safeguarding reviews
- anonymised complaints and outcomes data
- independent evaluations of its effectiveness
- survivor feedback
- information on oversight of complaints against the safeguarding office itself
- clear processes for challenging decisions
“If the Church genuinely believes it has transformed its safeguarding culture, it should have nothing to fear from transparency,” Longhurst said.
A Faith‑Ethics Question: What Does Protection Look Like?
For CVNZ’s faith‑and‑public‑ethics audience, the issue lands with moral weight. Scripture repeatedly calls institutions to protect the vulnerable, steward authority wisely, and ensure justice for those harmed.
When survivors report being met with delays, destroyed records, or legal resistance, the question becomes larger than process: What does genuine safeguarding look like in a faith community?
“A culture shift is not demonstrated by what an institution says about itself,” Longhurst said. “It is demonstrated by what happens to people.”
3 Comments
The most revealing fact about the New Zealand Catholic Church’s safeguarding system is not what its leaders say—it is who they choose to keep in positions of influence. When the bishops and congregational leaders repeatedly retain people such as Hamlin and Noonan, despite serious concerns about their roles and behaviours, it raises an obvious question: whose interests is the safeguarding system actually serving?
At some point, the personnel become the evidence. If the same people remain in place, doing the work the bishops and congregational leaders want done, then this is a system functioning precisely as its leaders intend.
That is the uncomfortable truth at the heart of the safeguarding theatre.
The New Zealand Catholic Church’s leadership, its bishops and congregational leaders, and the NOPS personnel, are acting unethically because when members of the public ask for the relevant evidence to support the public claims, and that evidence is not provided, then we must conclude that the claims being made are simply not true. After all, this is a church that boasts of openness and transparency, and then hides information that could ostensibly make it look good. The conclusion must be that such information simply does not exist. Consequently, how can anyone trust it? Further, how can anyone be safe?
Sarah McMillan deserves real credit for exposing the widening gap between the Catholic Church’s claims of safeguarding progress and the reality experienced by survivors. NOPS, in particular, needs to face some very uncomfortable questions. A body established to uphold professional standards and safeguard vulnerable people cannot credibly claim success while survivors report delays, defensiveness, legal resistance and a lack of transparency. NOPS cannot be both the referee and the player, and then expect people to trust the result. Grateful to Sarah for continuing to shine a much-needed light on this.