Call for name change regardless of inquiry
KAVANAGH College’s name should be changed, regardless of the outcome of an investigation into its namesake, a Dunedin lawyer says.
The Otago Daily Times this week reported an independent investigation had been launched into the handling of sexual abuse complaints by the former Roman Catholic Bishop of Dunedin, Bishop John Kavanagh.
Concerns around Bishop Kavanagh’s actions are at the centre of a push to change the name of the Dunedin high school.
The issue was referred to the Vatican last year, but the complaints did not fall within Rome’s scope because the bishop was dead. He died in 1985.
Dunedin’s David More, a barrister for 50 years and a member of the
Catholic Church, said the name of the school should be changed regardless of the investigation’s outcome.
Mr More was chairman of St Mary’s Kaikorai — a Catholic school — in 1989, when a merger of St Paul’s High School and Moreau College, a Catholic girls’ school, led to the creation of Kavanagh College.
Yesterday he said the college’s name should be changed back to St Paul’s now.
The actions of a former Catholic priest, Magnus Murray, who offended against boys in Dunedin from the 1950s to the 1970s, were brought to Bishop Kavanagh’s attention in 1972.
Bishop Kavanagh moved Murray to Australia, and later allowed him to resume public ministry in the North Island, where more victims have since emerged.
Male Survivors Otago spokesman Michael Chamberlain was unhappy the investigation was being conducted by the Catholic Church.
The church’s National Office for Professional Standards will undertake the investigation, led by Christchurch senior investigator Micky Earl, of the firm Corporate Risks.
Mr Chamberlain said he was quietly hopeful the name would still be changed.
‘‘It’s coming out, and it will come out from others, how much blood Kavanagh’s got on his hands.’’
Earlier this week Kavanagh College board of trustees chairwoman Barb Long declined to comment on the investigation, saying it was independent and the school was not part of it.