Joanne Maree Therese McCarthy is an Australian investigative journalist. Working for The Newcastle Herald, McCarthy wrote more than 1,000 articles on Catholic Church child sex abuse cases in the Hunter region. McCarthy's journalism was a decisive factor in Julia Gillard's decision to announce the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
Life and career
The oldest of 11 children, McCarthy grew up in a Catholic family and attended Catholic and public schools. Following a brief period of working as a nurse at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, she began her journalism career with a cadetship at the Gosford Star in 1980 before moving to the Central Coast Express Advocate. In 2002, she joined The Newcastle Herald.
The Newcastle Herald journalist Jeff Corbett had been reporting on the Catholic Church scandals around Father Vincent Ryan and Father Jim Fletcher. Following Ryan's conviction and sentencing in 1996, Corbett wrote that "The file is closed, apparently. But it should not be. The Catholic Church is yet to explain how it is one of its priests was able to prey on boys while he was transferred from one parish to another."
Corbett continued pursuing the priests and their superiors but McCarthy observed that charges against Father Guy Hartcher and Father John Denham received little publicity. Working alone but backed by editors Roger Brock and Chad Watson, McCarthy embarked on one of the longest running investigations any Australian newspaper has ever seen.
Catholic child sex abuse cases
In 2005, The Newcastle Herald assigned McCarthy to cover the sentencing of Father James Fletcher who had been convicted on multiple counts of sexual abuse against an altar boy named Daniel Feenan. McCarthy filed a brief report. In 2007, her editor asked her to look into falling numbers of children being enrolled in Catholic schools in the Hunter region. During a ring around, she was told it probably had something to do with "all the child sexual abuse stuff".
McCarthy started looking at The Newcastle Herald's coverage of the Father Vincent Ryan case in 1995. Ryan was the first Catholic priest in the Hunter region to be charged with child sexual abuse and one of the first in the world to be convicted. She discovered that many of the cases had not been followed up as they were often settled out of court. Her colleague Jeff Corbett faced criticism from the Catholic Church when he challenged the church's claim that Ryan was a lone rogue priest.
Bishop Leo Clarke and Monsignor Patrick Cotter
Her investigation led her to Monsignor Patrick Cotter who, it was alleged, concealed the child sexual abuse of Father Vincent Ryan for decades. McCarthy discovered church files and letters which showed that Cotter had known about Ryan's offending and did nothing to protect the children in his care. This knowledge explained why some of Ryan's victims received substantial compensation in comparison to other cases.
A police interview conducted by Constable Troy Grant ended with a recommendation that Monsignor Cotter be charged. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided that Cotter, who was then 82 and in poor health, was unfit to stand trial. McCarthy's story on Cotter ran on the front page of The Newcastle Herald.
She was inundated with calls about other priests. One informant was John Feenan, who at the time was in a senior position in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle. Feenan had been tasked with paying compensation to the victims of Father Ryan and had recently discovered that his own son, Daniel, had been sexually abused by Father Denis McAlinden. McCarthy began investigating McAlinden and discovered that he targeted girls between the ages of four and twelve and often families with many daughters. She also discovered that McAlinden's superiors in the church knew about his offending.
Papal apology
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI visited Australia for World Youth Day. It marked a change in approach for McCarthy, when she went from investigating to campaigning. She rang the organisers to enquire if the Pope would be making an apology to Australian victims of child sexual abuse. Having received an unsatisfactory response, she called the Vatican. She spoke to the papal nuncio in Australia who dismissed her out of hand.
With the Vatican ignoring her, McCarthy sent her questions to Bishop Michael Malone. Malone supported the idea of a papal apology and told her that he had even put it to the Australian Bishops Conference. Two other bishops also supported a papal apology. McCarthy ran Malone's demand for an apology on the front page of The Newcastle Herald.