Vatican ‘barred action on sex abuse’

By Dan Box
Australian
June 26, 2014

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/vatican-barred-action-on-sex-abuse/story-fngburq5-1226966894349

JUNE 26, 2014

Dan Box Crime Reporter Sydney

THE Vatican actively prevented bishops taking action against sexually abusive priests as recently as 2000, the royal commission has heard, with the Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide saying that he considered resigning his position over one such case.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Archbishop Philip Wilson said the Vatican’s powerful Congregation for the Clergy “always came down on the side of the priests” accused of child-sex abuse.

“There was a phenomenon going on where bishops, particularly in the US, were trying to deal with these cases involving abuse and the Congregation for the Clergy consistently made things difficult for them in trying to do that,” Archbishop Wilson said.

“The Congregation for the Clergy always came down on the side of the priests and the instructions they gave to the bishops were (that) what they had done had to be put aside and the priest allowed back into ministry.”