THE ROYAL COMMISSION, THE BISHOP, AND THE UNCHALLENGED EVIDENCE

THE ROYAL COMMISSION, THE BISHOP, AND THE UNCHALLENGED EVIDENCE

THE ROSE AND THE FIRE: A BIOGRAPHY OF ALFRED AND JOY HOLLAND

By Jonathan Holland

Connor Court, 2025

ISBN: 9781923568198

RRP – $39.95 (pb)

Reviewed by Michael Giffin

In the Introduction to his deeply moving biography of his parents – Alfred and Joy Holland – Jonathan Holland gives three motives.

First, to honour their rich and adventurous lives, from Alfred’s boyhood in the slums of the East End and survival of the Blitz, to their arrival in Fremantle in 1954 as newlyweds responding to Archbishop Robert Moline’s call to mission, to his time as Assistant Bishop of Perth, to his tenure as Bishop of Newcastle 1978–1992, when Church leaders were still part of the national conversation.

Second, to honour their considerable contribution to the Anglican Church, “substantially through the parish of Scarborough and the dioceses of Perth and Newcastle”. As Jonathan observes, many achievements his father initiated in Newcastle continue to bear fruit – consolidating the diocesan identity, adopting an Australian prayer book, ordaining women, completing the cathedral, establishing social welfare organisations, aged care facilities, a diocesan schools’ system, and processes for fiduciary management. Alfred’s episcopal legacy was broad and significant.

The author admits the biography is weighted towards Alfred “who left journals that allowed more access to his thoughts and feelings about his social role and family life”. Joy was harder to reconstruct; “her faith was received without doubts” whereas Alfred’s faith was tested, probed, and explored: “She walked with God; he wrestled with God.” As Jonathan Hollland observes, “She was content to be in the background … never pushed herself forward … did not seek the limelight … was not ambitious or out to increase her influence … had no ego that needed to be satisfied”.

Despite her self-effacing personality, Joy trained to become a full-time “Lay Parish Worker” at St Christopher’s College, Blackheath, London. On completing a two-year course in Theology and Teacher Training, she looked for a position in her home diocese, Bristol. But her principal encouraged her to meet the new rector of West Hackney and hear of his vision for his East End parish. Having been charmed and convinced, Joy arrived at the West Hackney rectory for a preliminary meeting with the rector and his new curate to discuss respective roles and responsibilities. Alfred was the new curate and the rest is history.

Third, to examine adverse findings against Alfred by the Royal Commission (RC) into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse – “Case Study 42” concerning the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle – made 25 years into his retirement. While Alfred steadfastly maintained “he never knew, nor was ever told about, child sexual abuse in the diocese committed by a small number of lay and ordained men, even though some people claimed they did tell him”, the Diocese was proceeding to act on the RC’s adverse findings. This would have resulted in his being laicised had he not passed away beforehand. Although the RC was instrumental in framing statutory protocols for “safeguarding”, its judicial processes were flawed. Jonathan describes his father’s public humiliation as “scapegoating” (Leviticus 16). He is qualified to do this, as a retired Bishop himself.

Alfred and Joy were influenced by class and culture. With East End sensibilities, Alfred can be described as “Old Labour” – the post-war consensus of British Labour prior to the arrival of “New Labour” in the 1990s. With Joy, the couple represented the social conscience of Old Labour in the Australian Church, a good fit in a period of change.

Joy was pregnant on arrival in Fremantle. Their first son, David, was born in 1955, followed by Jonathan and Mary; their youngest son, Luke, was born in 1960 but died tragically after a head-on collision in 1977. As Jonathan Holland recalls, “Joy’s love was more demonstrative than Alfred’s. She would hug, but Alfred always shook hands. It was only grandchildren who began to break down his English reserve. But whether Joy’s warmth or Alfred’s reserve, we knew we were loved. Alfred and Joy showed it … And in the background their faith, visible and robust”.

Between 1954 and 1970 the Hollands turned St Columba’s, in the Perth suburb of Scarborough, into the largest and most active parish in the Diocese. In 1963, Moline asked Alfred to join General Synod’s commission on revising the much-loved 1662 Book of Common Prayer, which would expose Alfred to the wider national Church. His proposal to reintroduce the “anointing of the sick” was savaged by the Principal of Moore College in Sydney – Broughton Knox – as an “Anglo-Catholic attempt to subvert Reformation Anglican practice and reintroduce medieval corruption”. But an Assistant Bishop of Sydney – Marcus Loane – knew anointing was biblical, which is when Alfred began to deeply respect Loane as his brother-in-Christ. At the end of his time in Scarborough, Alfred had baptised 2,351 babies and prepared 1,510 young people for Confirmation, but “was beginning to sense the emerging social and cultural conditions that were making it harder and harder to plant the living Faith in Australia”.

As Assistant Bishop, Perth (1970–1977), Alfred saw his primary role as care of the clergy; however, Archbishop Geoffrey Sambell had just launched what the Anglican Messenger called “the biggest church expansion program” in the diocese’s history. He chose Alfred to chair committees with a parochial, evangelistic dimension (Salvation Upreach), which allowed Sambell to focus on his own area of expertise (Salvation Outreach). It was tough work, with numerical and financial decline setting in in the 1970s. “Established parishes were less able to support emergent parishes and denominational loyalty was diminishing. As well, the traditional doors into Anglicanism – baptism, confirmation, and parish visiting – seemed less effective.”

The standout event in these years was “Celebration 75”, a diocesan evangelistic endeavour, in which Alfred was the driving force, “showcasing his creativity, imagination, and eye for detailed management”. In August 1977, Alfred was elected to General Synod in Sydney, representing Perth. The two key debates were, the possibility of ordaining women, and the proposed An Australian Prayer Book (AAPB). In Newcastle, Alfred and Joy experienced a different culture. Much smaller than Perth, Newcastle “encouraged identity and belonging rather than the anonymity of a larger city.” Also, Newcastle had a strong Labor culture and was a trade union city. Alfred and Joy’s English origins would not work for them in Newcastle, as it had in Perth, and “after a little while a few voices raised the idea of naturalisation – something they found too difficult until nearer retirement”. If Perth was the most English of all Australian dioceses, Newcastle clergy were local and trained at St John’s College, Morpeth in the NSW Hunter Valley.

Until relatively recently, like their secular counterparts, Anglicans were conflicted about homosexuality. At the 1979 diocesan synod, a disarming but eccentric classics professor – Godfrey Tanner – moved that synod consider a Church of England report endorsing gay relationships. The proposal met serious opposition from synod members, some of whom saw it as the “the beginning of homosexual clergy” (as if there weren’t any). One member called it a “serious sickness” and was so objectionable Alfred had to ask him to restrain himself.

Alfred accepted homosexuality as part of the human condition. Knowing gay clergy were in a difficult position. As his son writes:

He dissuaded speculation about a priest being gay, and he assumed his single clergy, whether gay or straight, were celibate, in much the same way he assumed his married clergy were faithful to their wives. To have discovered otherwise (in either case) would have brought a ministry to an end, no matter how effective or loved that priest was, or how repentant he might be.

Alfred’s attitude was that homosexuality had been around for centuries and was and was here to stay. What gay clergy did in their private lives was not something he would actively investigate unless it impacted their ministry. Then he would step in. It was a compassionate attitude. A 1981 synod resolution caught something of the ambiguity many felt and which Alfred had to negotiate, when it passed a resolution re-stating Anglican teaching that “homosexual acts are not in accordance with God’s will”, while at the same time calling on State government to de-criminalise “homosexual behaviour in private between consenting adults”.

Alfred thought Newcastle was the first Australian diocese to “take positive action about homosexuals … because they are a group that is discriminated against, and as I read the New Testament, it was groups like this in society that Jesus tried very hard to help. We have a vast educative program before us to convince the community generally”.

Early in 2016, at the age of 92, Joy was diagnosed with dementia and placed in residential care. Being close-knit, the family experienced guilt, with Alfred wondering “Why aren’t we caring for Joy at home?” A few months after this, Alfred, nearly 90, was asked to give evidence to the RC as the former bishop of Newcastle. The author notes:

He entered the RC with good will. He wanted to do what he could to help in the healing process for those who had been abused and in the demand for justice and for better processes to preclude future instances of child sexual abuse in institutions …

In the weeks beforehand Alfred … intially [he] saw no need [to seek legal assistance] given it would simply be a case of telling the truth and he had nothing to hide and every reason to encourage the commissioners’ work … Alfred would have been taken aback to hear that around Australia other Anglican bishops and archbishops who had been called to give evidence were selecting their own barristers, paid for by their own diocese, and being thoroughly schooled in their responses to possible questions. These bishops and their media advisers were more knowing than Alfred and were watching the livestreaming of other case studies, hoping to pick up cues and notice themes. They knew this RC was going to make and break reputations and ministries …

In the meantime, his first desire was to care for Joy. Each day he would shuffle on his walking frame the 400 metres from his Windsor Gardens Retirement Village along busy Mowbray Road and cross the road to Willowood Nursing Home, to spend the day with Joy, saying their morning prayers together, talking, sleeping and eating, reading, chatting with Mary on her daily visit, helping Joy to the bathroom, making sure she ate, receiving her washed clothes and putting them away, and having a late-afternoon sherry with her before shuffling home again.

Alfred was naïve to think he had nothing to hide and only needed to tell the truth. The RC was a judicial instrument with legal powers to compel witnesses to testify under oath. But it ignored recognised legal standards to arrive at its predetermined conclusion, unlike real courts which adhere to procedural fairness and natural justice. In this case, there was no mechanism to cross-examine witnesses, challenge testimony, or protest attempts to lead witnesses. Case Study 42 was about using evidence – in the form of oral and written reports, some of which were hearsay – against a frail old man.

Using the example of Father Peter Rushton [not to be confused with Fr Peter Rushton of Hobart], the RC was satisfied that:

• in the early 1980s, Alfred had been informed of an allegation that Rushton had sexually abused COE, the five-year old son of his assistant priest in the Wallsend parish, COA.
• soon after the incident, COE’s parents, COA and COC, together with friends Christopher and Valerie Hall, met with Alfred and reported the alleged abuse to him, but Alfred was dismissive and said without further evidence he could take no action.
• When Rushton learned that Pamela Wilson, parishioner and friend of COE’s parents, intended to complain to Alfred about the alleged abuse, he threatened her with legal action if she pursued the complaint.
• When parishioner Lesley Danger raised the allegation with Alfred, he told her there was nothing he could do because Rushton had threatened legal action.

The RC found it implausible that multiple witnesses would give the same false account of the alleged abuse of COE to Alfred, thus it rejected his evidence that he had no recollection of this matter. The RC was satisfied that Alfred failed to take any action to report or risk manage Rushton, on being made aware of the allegations, and he did not provide appropriate support to COE and his family after the allegations were made.

Jonathan Holland makes significant observations here:

Pam Wilson said COC and COA told her “they’d already been to see the bishop”. But which bishop? Was it Alfred (as in Wilson’s written testimony) or had that been an assumption and the bishop was the assistant, Geoffrey Parker? Two priests who spoke to me (but did not make submissions to the RC) said they had reported concerns about Rushton, not to Alfred, but to Parker. One wrote that he had overheard Rushton at a diocesan breakfast for altar servers tell a table of boys “a filthy joke of a homosexual nature”. The priest was appalled and reported the matter to Parker who said he would “deal with it quickly”, more so since he had another complaint from “a mother of a boy in [Rushton’s] parish”.

The priest continued:

Soon after I found myself being sidelined and addressed abusively by Rushton and some of his friends. I realised that Bishop Parker must have said something to Rushton. When Bishop Alfred testified that he could not remember being visited by a lady alerting him to Rushton’s nature, I feel it is likely she was herself unsure which bishop she had seen and talked to, and believed she had seen the Diocesan Bishop rather than the Assistant Bishop.”

Jonathan Holland thinks this possibility makes sense of several otherwise puzzling elements, for it explains:

• Why Alfred had no memory of a 1980 meeting with COC and COA.
• Why the Halls said they met at the cathedral. The assistant bishop’s house was alongside the cathedral.
• How Rushton found out about the complaints.
• Why Alfred had no hesitation in making Rushton an archdeacon (as a priest of good standing, later, in 1983). Neither reporting priests had any sense that Alfred was ever aware of their concerns.

For Jonathan Holland, this is a useful line of enquiry which fits many of the facts; the possibility of which makes it harder for the RC to make adverse findings against Alfred with any conviction. With due process, Rushton must be assumed innocent until proven guilty. With the RC process, he was assumed guilty from the start; further, as Rushton died in 2007, he was unable to have evidence against him tested in the RC, which commenced some years later, provided he paid for a barrister.

The trope of paedophile priest – Roman Catholic and High Church Anglican – has been a media staple for ages, a way of turning hearsay into shocking headlines (because moral panic sells). What tends to be overlooked is that child sexual abuse is not unique to the Church. It occurs in secular institutions too. But that is not so newsworthy.

During the months of the RC – mid-2016 to the end of 2017 – Alfred continued to visit Joy daily in Willowood. On 30 December 2017, Alfred had a car accident parking his car in Windsor Gardens Retirement Village carpark, putting his foot on the accelerator rather than the brake and slamming into a brick wall. After a short stint in hospital—while his functional capacity and cognitive ability were assessed—he realised he needed more care and moved in with Joy at Willowood. They were given a shared room.

In July 2018, the Holland family were surprised to hear in the media that Newcastle Diocese had announced it was initiating disciplinary proceedings against Alfred. The family were hurt and angry, for the media had presumed guilt had been proven by the RC findings. “Once more Alfred was in the media, shamed and humiliated, without even a courtesy call from someone in the Anglican Church to let him know what was happening.”

In late July Alfred had a PET scan which revealed a skin cancer had penetrated his skull. Rather than invasive treatment, he chose to let nature take its course. “He was told to enter palliative care, and that he had weeks, maybe months, but not years to live.”

The family contacted Church authorities to let them know Alfred was in palliative care and had been given weeks, perhaps months, to live. Early in October, they received a perfunctory email asking for this information to be confirmed by a suitably qualified medical practitioner who should report both on Alfred’s prognosis and his “ability to respond to matters arising from the [RC] which the Episcopal Standards Commission might put to him”. Because there was no note of compassion or sympathy in this email, the family chose not to respond. Alfred passed away on 8 October 2018, early in the morning, holding Joy’s hand. Thankfully, she did not know what had happened, then and during the final years of her beloved husband’s life.

Michael Giffin is an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Sydney. He was rejected by the Newcastle Diocese Selection Conference in 1987 but was accepted by the Wangaratta Diocese Selection Conference in 1988.