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	"Abuser" in Contact with Kids, Says Fellow Priest By Rick Wallace and Rory Callinan The Australian September 19, 2010 http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/abuser-in-contact-with-kids-says-fellow-priest/story-e6frg6nf-1225927002143 A PRIEST who worked alongside Peter Chalk in Japan said the accused pedophile had regular contact with children in Nagoya. This was while Mr Chalk was working with the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart order in the Japanese city. "All of us, if you are in a parish, you would do baptisms, meet families, there would be no work you would do without (involving) children," Keith Humphries told The Australian yesterday. Speaking from the Nagoya headquarters of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart's Japanese arm, Father Humphries said he had heard of the abuse claims levelled against Mr Chalk but not until after the former priest, who had been working in Nagoya in the late 1980s, had abruptly left the order. The current MSC Provincial Father, Tim Brennan, yesterday told The Australian that Mr Chalk had "resigned from our religious order in 1995". Father Humphries said he was not aware of any complaints of abuse levelled at Mr Chalk in Japan. "If there were, they weren't made to me," he said. The MSC had lost track of Mr Chalk soon after his departure and had not been able to find him, despite several attempts to do so, Father Humphries said. The Australian has requested an interview with the head of theMSC in Japan, Sadami Takayama. Mr Chalk -- who The Weekend Australian revealed on Saturday is facing allegations that he abused a number of boys in Australia in the 1970s -- was believed to be running the Japan arm of the MSC until his resignation. "My feeling of how he left was he was going through an interior struggle and he went to another priest for counselling," Father Humphries said. Mr Chalk, who has Japanese citizenship, told The Australian last week he left the order to avoid embarrassment when complaints began to be raised about him in Australia. He has denied abusing any children but acknowledged indulging in "crude" behaviour as a young priest and said he had had counselling for "a variety of issues to work out, quite frankly, what life itself was about and whether it was worth living."
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