AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX From: The Australian July 03, 2013
SOME of Australia’s most senior Catholic bishops, as well as the pope’s representative in Canberra and potentially the Vatican itself, were involved in an attempt to defrock a pedophile priest rather than report his crimes to police.
Three successive bishops in Newcastle, NSW, also had personal knowledge that Father Denis McAlinden was abusing children, while bishops in England, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea were also warned about the allegations against him.
In an exchange of letters with the priest during the 1990s, the late bishop Leo Clarke asked him to petition the Holy See in Rome to request his formal laicisation – effectively ending his career as a priest.
“Your good name will be protected by the confidential nature of this process,” Clarke wrote.
“A speedy resolution of this matter would be in your interest as I have it on good authority that some people are threatening to take it to the police.”
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