Priest Charged with Concealment of Alleged Sex Offences

ABC Radio National
September 6, 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/religionandethicsreport/priest-charged-with-concealing-sex-offences/4244662#transcript

[with audio]

A Catholic priest has been charged with two counts of so-called misprision of a felony. Police claim that Fr Tom Brennan failed to report to authorities allegations of sex crimes that a fellow priest is alleged to have committed against two boys in the late 1970s. At the time, Fr Brennan was principal of St Pius X school in Newcastle, where a man accused of sexual offences, now former priest John Denham, taught. Fr Brennan has also been charged with assault for allegedly caning the two boys when they reported the alleged instances to him.

This case stirs up memories of a recent trial in the United States, where Monsignor William Lynn of Philadelphia has been sent to jail. He was not a sex offender himself but moved priests whom he knew were offenders between parishes, rather than reporting them to police. Dr Andrew Morrison, a barrister, senior counsel, and NSW spokesman for the Australian Lawyers Alliance, explains why the case of Fr Tom Brennan so important.