Pavlou de-frocked

By Kath Gannaway
FORMER Healesville Catholic priest Paul Pavlou has been laicised (de-frocked) from the priesthood by the Vatican two years after being placed on the sex offenders register.
Pavlou pleaded guilty in 2009 to indecent acts against a 14-year-old Healesville boy and to possessing child pornography.
He was given an 18-month suspended jail sentence.
Bishop Les Tomlinson, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Melbourne, said Pavlou was no longer on the payroll.
He said several priests had been laicised recently and a number of further applications were underway.
“This reflects recent changes to Canon (Church) law which mean that it is now easier to have a priest laicised in cases where criminal actions against children are involved,” he said.
“Previously it was more difficult, particularly if the priest did not co-operate.”
The mother of the boy abused by Pavlou, along with the father of another boy sexually abused by Healesville’s first convicted paedophile priest, David Daniel, have welcomed the move but say it has taken far too long for this one priest, and want answers now as to whether other priests convicted of sex crimes against children will be defrocked.
“To me, it’s just a case of the church playing catch-up,” said the father who said he had no idea of whether Daniel had been defrocked.
Bishop Tomlinson told the Mail it was Archbishop Hart’s wish that Daniel be laicised but that he could not pre-judge how the Vatican would rule.
The mother said she had not been notified by the church that Pavlou was being defrocked but that there was some justice in it.
“It is a victory of sorts, but why now, why Pavlou and not all the others who are still sitting there protected by the Church,” she said.
“The Archbishop intends to pursue laicisation of all priests who have been convicted of sexual offences against children,” Bishop Tomlinson told the Mail.
Both parents say they will continue to lobby for the same mandatory reporting requirements placed on people such as teachers, doctors and others working with children to be placed on members of the Melbourne Response – the Catholic Church’s team which handles complaints about clergy sexual abuse.