SOUTH AFRICA
IOL
November 09 2005 at 01:41AM
By Dominique Herman
The Catholic Archbishop of Cape Town received a verbal lashing from members of the Camps Bay Catholic Church on Tuesday night for not reporting a paedophilic priest to police.
Former parish priest Patrick Thornton was convicted in September of indecently assaulting teenage boys more than a decade ago.
Archbishop Lawrence Henry said he had not told police of Thornton's confession of sexual abuse in January 2004, because he did not know he was "required to report it".
'I don't think I have done anything grossly wrong'
"It was a first for me," he said. "I'm sorry about the non-action and the slow process of the protocol. If this happens again, we will deal with these things expeditiously. I will put pressure on the protocol committee to get their act together," the Archbishop said.