AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By IAN KIRKWOOD July 25, 2013
COUNSEL for a victim of paedophile priest Denis McAlinden has asked why the only thing a senior Catholic cleric says he can remember about the matter is the one thing that would mean he did not have to go to police at the time.
Maria Gerace, counsel for various church victims including one known as ‘‘AJ’’, was cross-examining Father Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and a major figure in forming the church’s response to priestly child sexual abuse from the late 1980s.
After almost two days of giving his evidence in chief before senior counsel assisting, Julia Lonergan, Father Lucas was asked by Ms Gerace about a number of matters from those days, including a media release issued by the Catholic welfare agency, Centacare, in March 1992.
Allowed to continue despite objections from Father Lucas’s counsel, Peter Skinner, Ms Gerace said the media release stated that priests accused of child sexual abuse would be stood down automatically from their duties and the allegations taken to civil authorities.
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