AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By IAN KIRKWOOD July 25, 2013
FATHER Brian Lucas has finished giving his evidence in chief to the special commission of inquiry with a determined defence of the practices he used to deal with Denis McAlinden and other paedophile priests.
Father Lucas, the Canberra-based general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference since 2002, was previously with the Catholic Church’s Archdiocese of Sydney and a key player in the Australian church’s formulation of early policies dealing with child sexual abuse by clergy.
As he did on Wednesday, Father Lucas defended his decision not to tell the police about McAlinden on the grounds that the victims who had come to him for help were adamant that they did not want the police involved.
In the commission’s pre-lunch session on Thursday, Father Lucas said this created a significant dilemma that was only solved in 1996 when the church began working more closely with police and developed a protocol to tell the civil authorities about allegations made against clergy without necessarily naming the victims.
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