AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX From: The Australian July 01, 2013
THE Catholic church received repeated reports that a pedophile priest was abusing children, some as young as four, but failed to pass these on to police for decades, an inquiry has heard.
Church authorities instead actively concealed his abuse and encouraged the priest, Father Denis McAlinden, to move to other dioceses in Australia and overseas, where he was able to continue abusing children.
Even after NSW Police issued a warrant for the priest’s arrest in 1999, the inquiry heard, church authorities did not initially provide his address, and the priest ultimately died six years later without being charged.
The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry has heard that the first recorded report of McAlinden’s abuse was in 1953, when the parents of one his victims reported it to the then-Bishop of Maitland.
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