Secret Report Handed to Christian Brothers Bosses in Rome Reveals ‘sex Underworld’ in Some Australian Orphanages

By Janet Fife-yeomans
The Australian
April 26, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/secret-report-handed-to-christian-brothers-bosses-in-rome-reveals-sex-underworld-in-some-australian-orphanages/story-e6frg6n6-1226896338741

A SECRET report handed to Christian Brothers bosses in Rome ­revealed a “sex underworld” in some of the order’s Australian ­orphanages, with some monks raping up to 50 boys each.

The report, prepared in the early 1990s by the order’s official historian, contained damning evidence the order’s hierarchy in Australia knew decades earlier about the widespread abuse, but hid it.

“As long as outsiders do not ­become aware, we may hope for better times after the war,” the principal of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia, Brother PA Conlon, wrote in 1941, according to the report.

In 1935, Brother Conlon had written to another brother about the possibility of “scandals”.

Despite knowing of the abuse, the order negotiated with Catholic rescue societies in the UK and Malta for thousands of child ­migrants to be shipped to Australia. Picture: Supplied Source: News Limited

The report, which has never been made public in full, has been ­obtained by the child sex abuse royal commission. The commission is sitting in Perth next week to investigate the handling of abuse by the Christian Brothers at its four notorious ­orphanages in Western Australia.

Despite knowing of the abuse, which stretched back at least to 1920, the order negotiated with Catholic rescue societies in the UK and Malta for thousands of child ­migrants to be shipped to Australia.

Among the homes were Castledare, St Vincent’s, St Mary’s Agricultural School and Bindoon Farm School, all which will be investigated by the royal commission.

The existence of the report, written by Brother Barry Coldrey in 1993 and sent to the Superior-General of the Christian Brothers in Rome, surfaced in a NSW Supreme Court case the following year, brought against the order by more than 200 migrants. The case was settled and the report was suppressed by the court.