Disgraced Priest Threatened to Sue Following Papal Dismissal

By Rachel Browne
Sydney Morning Herald
June 27, 2014

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/royal-commission-disgraced-priest-threatened-to-sue-following-papal-dismissal-20140627-zsnpc.html

Posed "really serious risk factors" for children: John Nestor.

When a Catholic priest was formally dismissed by the Pope in the wake of sexual misconduct claims, he made a “veiled threat” to sue the Bishop who delivered the news.

Wollongong Bishop Peter Ingham told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that John Nestor refused to accept that he was to be dismissed by papal decree after a lengthy battle to oust him from the ministry which went all the way to the Vatican.

Bishop Ingham told Mr Nestor he was not going to make the Pope’s decision in 2008 widely known.

“I told him the situation and I said I’d be letting the clergy know but I wasn’t planning to make it public,” he told the commission.

“[Mr Nestor] said, ‘I wish you would’, and I took that to mean he would probably try to sue me.’’

Mr Nestor was convicted of sexually molesting a teenage altar boy in 1996 but later acquitted on appeal. Following that case, new claims of sexual misconduct emerged including claims he swam naked with boys and watched them showering during summer camps he ran in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Bishop Ingham told the hearing before commission chairman Justice Peter McClellan that Mr Nestor refused to accept the dismissal, later accusing the Diocese of bribing parishioners to fabricate claims against him.

“John Nestor did come out of the woodwork and make a comment ... that the Diocese had paid people to testify against him,” he said. “He still had this conspiracy sort of theory.”

Bishop Peter Comensoli, the Diocesan Chancellor of Wollongong between 2000-06, recalled how the Diocese hoped to use the Commission for Children and Young People Act to keep Nestor away from youngsters while he was still in the ministry. The act requires people working with children to undergo screening for their suitability.

Wollongong’s current Diocesan Chancellor Sister Moya Hanlen, told the commission that Mr Nestor posed “really serious risk factors” for children.

Mr Nestor, who is believed to be living in rural NSW, did not appear at the inquiry which is examining how the Catholic Church uses cannon law to deal with priests who have been accused of misconduct but not convicted. The inquiry was adjourned on Friday with submissions to be heard at a later date.