AUSTRALIA
The West Australian
By Paul Maguire, AAP
Updated July 15, 2013
A former Catholic bishop has described his “gradual awakening to the horror of sexual abuse in the church” at a NSW inquiry.
Bishop Michael Malone, formerly the head of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, says he met with “indifference” from some members of the clergy when he began to speak out for victims of child sex abuse.
Bishop Malone told a special commission of inquiry in Newcastle on Monday that he began to speak publicly for victims and their families in 2005 but there was little interest, even from priests in the diocese he ran.
“It was not overt ostracisation, it was more of an indifference to me and the things I was saying,” he said.
He said bad feelings had emerged around 2004 and divided the region’s Catholic community.
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