AUSTRALIA
ABC News
One of the country’s most senior Catholic Church officials says the bishop of a diocese does not need to know about a paedophile priest’s admissions of guilt.
In the 1990s father Brian Lucas had a special role, to “seduce paedophile priests” to resign.
Father Lucas is a qualified lawyer and general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and is giving evidence at the inquiry into claims the church covered up abuse by two priests, including Denis McAlinden.
The commission’s heard McAlinden confessed in 1993 to the abuse of children but father Lucas said he did not need to tell the Maitland-Newcastle bishop.
He said the bishop “didn’t need to know the names of the victims to fulfil his child protections obligations”; he “only needed to know the outcome of the meeting” that the paedophile priest had resigned and should never work for the Church again.
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