AUSTRALIA
ABC News
One of the country’s most senior Catholic Church officials admits it was Church protocol to deal with paedophile priests ‘secretly and discreetly’.
The Commission is examining claims the Church covered up abuse to protect two priests, Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.
The inquiry’s heard father Brian Lucas’s job in the 1990s was to “encourage” paedophile priests to resign in a bid to restrict their access to children.
Maria Gerace is representing some of McAlinden’s victims at the inquiry.
Late yesterday she put to Father Lucas that Church protocol in 1993 “was a secret process that dealt with the allegations discreetly”.
She said it enabled the “scandal to be contained in the offices of the Church”.
Father Lucas replied, “To some extent, yes”
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.