AUSTRALIA
ABC – Lateline
[with video]
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcast: 10/07/2013
Reporter: Suzanne Smith
Retired Catholic Bishop, Michael Malone, who headed the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 to 2011 has told the Newcastle Inquiry into sexual abuse in the church that he was not aware of all the documentary evidence in his files about a paedophile priest until three weeks ago.
Transcript
TONY JONES, PRESENTER: A retired Catholic bishop has told the NSW inquiry into child sexual abuse that despite being bishop of his diocese for 16 years he’d not acquainted himself with a substantial amount of documentary evidence about a known paedophile priest held in his own files until the documents were released three weeks ago.
The internal Church letters and documents on father Denis McAlinden were released last week, showing the Church had information about his paedophile behaviour as far back as 1953.
Bishop Michael Malone, who headed the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese from 1995 until 2011, said he’d been the bishop of a busy diocese and hadn’t had the luxury to go trawling through personnel files.
Suzie Smith reports from Newcastle. The producer is Stephen Crittenden.
SUZIE SMITH, REPORTER: Michael Malone was nominated to succeed the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle Leo Clarke in November, 1994.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.