AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
June 25, 2013
Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer
One of the Australian Catholic Church’s most senior figures, Father Brian Lucas, confessed in an internal church document that he knew the disgraced paedophile priest Father Denis McAlinden had been “interfering with children” but he had done nothing about it.
Fairfax Media reporter Joanne McCarthy told the inquiry into church and police handling of sexual abuse in the Hunter region that documents handed to her by a victim, known as AL, indicated the systematic protection of paedophiles within the church.
Father Lucas’ confession was contained in documents that then bishop of Maitland-Newcastle diocese Michael Malone had authorised be released.
In 1993 Father Lucas had known of McAlinden’s abuse of a girl aged under 10. Two years later McAlinden was defrocked in secret.
On Tuesday afternoon the inquiry heard that McCarthy gave the documents to a NSW detective, Shaun McCleod, in April 2010.
“The material that the police had obviously shows on the face of it an intention to alert McAlinden … if that isn’t trying to protect a paedophile, I don’t know what is,” McCarthy’s barrister, Winston Terracini, SC, suggested to her.
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