AUSTRALIA
lewisblayse.net
Lewis Blayse
Bishop Michael Malone, speaking to the NSW government inquiry into clerical child sexual abuse in the Newcastle-Maitland diocese, said he asked his predecessor, Leo Clarke, what the skeletons in the closet were. Bishop Clarke pushed a wooden box across the table and told him to also look in a briefcase in the corner of the room. “I asked what’s in the briefcase and he said ‘oh well, you’ll find out’,” Bishop Malone said.
The skeletons were paedophile priests, notably Fletcher and McAlinden (see previous postings). The elephant in the room, which went un-noticed, was that they were being protected. Malone may have continued his predecessors practice. Only the fly on the wall could be sure. Perhaps, Malone was just reluctant to open the can of worms. In the end, he let sleeping dogs lie.
The public interest in Malone’s evidence was reflected in the public gallery, which was full to over-flowing.
Bishop Malone admitted that the diocese had stored confidential documents dating back to the 1970s confirming McAlinden was a known pedophile, with allegations reaching as far back as the 1950s. Although Bishop Clarke, had formally removed McAlinden’s right to practice as a priest in 1993, in mid-1995 he was still being paid by the diocese, had been traveling the world for some time and was in the Philippines masquerading as a priest and carrying out the work of a priest.
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