AUSTRALIA
The Australian
[Letters presented to the Special Commission of Inquiry – Newcastle Herald]
DAN BOX From: The Australian July 05, 2013
THE Catholic church continued to provide a pension to a pedophile priest after agreeing he would retire to England rather than have his victims go to the police, an inquiry has heard.
The arrangement is revealed in a series of letters tendered to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, which also detail how the priest, Denis McAlinden, attempted to manipulate his superiors’ response to his crimes.
In one 1993 letter sent to the church’s Sick Clergy Fund, the late bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Leo Clarke, stated that “Fr D McAlinden has retired from active priestly duty” and is living in Skegness. He should receive $12,158 per year, Clarke wrote, more than the minimum stipend paid to a parish priest.
In a May 1995 letter, Clarke said McAlinden had admitted to child abuse and “an agreement was reached by which Fr Denis was to return to England and . . . not to act as a priest”.
The letter shows that Clarke subsequently discovered the priest had in fact travelled to The Philippines and was again working in the church.
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