The church protected Father Frank Klep during his life of crime

Broken Rites
May 24, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/38

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the large Catholic order of Salesian Fathers harboured an Australian paedophile priest, Father Frank Klep, for many years - allowing him to commit sexual crimes against defenceless boys. With help from Broken Rites, some of his victims finally managed to expose Klep and the Salesians during three court cases. Since then, more of his countless victims have contacted the police, and on 26 May 2014 Klep received another jail sentence — 10 years and six months, with parole possible after six and a half years.

Frank Gerard Klep was ordained as a priest of the Salesian teaching order in Melbourne in 1972. Years later, some ex-students revealed that they had been sexually abused by Father Klep when they were children in his "care". However, the Salesian order protected Klep from any complaints.

Eventually, in 1994, some ex-students managed to get Klep convicted in Melbourne for indecently assaulting them, when they were aged 13, in the sick dormitory of a Salesian secondary school, Salesian College (also known as "Rupertswood"), at Sunbury in Melbourne's north-west. The offences occurred in the 1970s but were covered up until the 1994 court case.

On the day of the Klep court case, a Broken Rites researcher was visiting the court building (for a different case) and discovered that a Catholic priest (Father Frank Klep) was in an adjoining courtroom on child-sex charges. Therefore, Broken Rites began researching Frank Klep and the church's cover-up. Broken Rites later found more victims of Klep.

The Salesians eventually transferred Klep from Australia to the Pacific island Samoa -- and they illegally concealed his Australian criminal conviction from the Samoan authorities. In Samoa, he was out of reach of the Australian police. In 2004, after more Melbourne victims contacted the Australian police, Samoa deported Frank Klep back to Australia, where he eventually pleaded guilty regarding the additional victims. He was again convicted. Even as Klep entered jail in December 2005 (eleven years after his first conviction), his Salesian bosses still had not removed him from the priesthood.

In court again on 2 December 2013 (after more of his victims contacted Broken Rites and the police), Klep pleaded guilty to more crimes against boys, including rape and attempted buggery.

This story raises questions not just about Frank Klep but about the Catholic system that sheltered him from justice.