Ex-Priest Kevin Lee Dies in Typhoon Haiyan in Philippines

By Dan Harrison
The Wa Today
November 11, 2013

http://www.watoday.com.au/national/expriest-kevin-lee-dies-in-typhoon-haiyan-in-philippines-20131110-2xa5o.html

Kevin Lee with daughter Michelle. The former priest drowned after disappearing in rough surf off Samar Island in the Philippines.

[Former priest alleges 'system of abuse cover-ups' - ABC Latline]

An Australian man removed from the priesthood for secretly marrying has been killed by typhoon Haiyan just weeks after becoming a father.

Kevin Lee, who made headlines worldwide in May last year when he was defrocked after revealing he had been married for more than a year, drowned after disappearing in rough surf off Samar Island in the Philippines.

Police found his body on Sunday morning, Australian time.

Mr Lee had been living with his Filipino wife Josefina in her home village, and recently celebrated the birth of a baby girl, Michelle.

The 49-year-old, a whistleblower on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, recently reflected on his blog that had he not broken his vow of celibacy, his daughter would not be alive.

''I have always believed that nothing happens without God's divine permission,'' he wrote.

The couple met in a Manila karaoke bar in 2011, when Mr Lee, then the priest at Padre Pio parish in Glenmore Park in Sydney's west, was on a pilgrimage with other members of the church.

Mr Lee has said they fell in love while singing George Michael's Careless Whisper. They married soon afterwards.

Before leaving the priesthood Mr Lee met Tony Abbott to discuss running for the western Sydney seat of Lindsay.

He later sought Liberal preselection for the seat of McMahon, held for Labor by shadow treasurer Chris Bowen.

But he was defeated by his friend Ray King, with whom he had worked when King was a police commander in the Sydney suburb of Fairfield and Lee a police chaplain. Mr King told Fairfax Media on Sunday he and Mr Lee had fallen out over the preselection contest and he was ''devastated'' they had not had the chance to reconcile.

Mr King remembered Mr Lee as a ''gifted priest'' who knew the names of all his parishioners and the children at the local Catholic schools.

He said the community was in shock over Mr Lee's death, but said it would rally around his widow, parents Matthew and Margaret and nine siblings. ''We all believed that Kevin had turned his life around with the birth of his baby and was really starting to enjoy his life in the Philippines,'' Mr King said.

Mr Lee claimed to have witnessed the cover-up of serious crimes while a priest and had campaigned on behalf of victims of sexual abuse.

A book he wrote called Unholy Silence, which claimed to expose the ''well kept, dark, in-house secrets" of the church, was published earlier this year.