Kavanagh College to consider change

A FRESH call to change the name of Kavanagh College is to be considered by the school’s board of trustees, as pressure mounts over the role played by Dunedin’s former Catholic bishop.

Murray Heasley, a spokesman for the Network of Survivors in Faithbased Institutions and their Supporters, has written to the board of the Catholic college for a second time to urge them to take action.

The renewed call for a name change followed recent ODT Insight reports highlighting the extent of sexual offending against children within the Catholic Diocese of Dunedin, including at the college’s precursor, St Paul’s High School.

Much of the offending occurred under the watch of thenBishop John Kavanagh, who from 1949 to 1985 was Dunedin’s fourth Catholic bishop, and who Dr Heasley said had ‘‘command responsibility’’ under canon law.

Kavanagh College acting chairman Paul O’Neill, responding to ODT Insight questions, confirmed on Tuesday the call for a name change would be considered at the college’s next board meeting, scheduled for October 30.

However, a final decision could only be made by the college proprietor, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, the Most Rev Michael Dooley, Mr O’Neill said.

Bishop Dooley would not com ment this week, but last month said he would not condemn Bishop Kavanagh, or consider a college name change, without ‘‘credible evidence’’ to support such a move.

He has defended Bishop Kavanagh’s role in endorsing the Dunedin paedophile priest Fr Magnus Murray to continue in public ministry even after his offending was revealed, saying he acted according to the understanding of the day.

Fr Murray was in 2003 convicted of crimes against four Dunedin boys, but ODT Insight has since found other victims in Dunedin, the North Island and Australia.

And ODT Insight has also since revealed a list of other offenders who abused children in Dunedin during the same period, all under Bishop Kavanagh’s watch.

The list included St Paul’s teacher Ian Thompson and at least four Christian Brothers all based in Dunedin — Brs Desmond Fay, Francis Henery, Vincent Sullivan and Richard Glen.

Fr Kevin Morton, another priest from Dunedin, also had his priestly faculties stripped in 2002, after allegations emerged he raped a boy in Oamaru in the 1970s.

In 1993, Fr Robin Paulson admitted offences against three children in Southland, while Fr Patrick Thwaites — who taught at St Peter’s in Gore in 1977 — was in 1999 convicted of offences against boys in Christchurch and the West Coast in the 1980s.

Other offenders have also been implicated, but cannot yet be named for legal reasons.