AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
By JOANNE McCARTHY Nov. 8, 2013
THE late Newcastle Anglican Bishop James Housden kept a ‘‘very careful watch’’ on Allan Kitchingman when the former ‘‘nightclub entertainer’’ and major record company public relations officer studied to be a priest at St John’s College, Morpeth, from 1960.
That was because of Kitchingman’s ‘‘earlier background and associations’’, the bishop said in a letter in 1968.
But when Kitchingman was charged with a ‘‘child sex matter’’ in 1968, the bishop offered his immediate support and pledged to keep him in the ministry ‘‘under a bishop who would be fully informed of the circumstances’’.
Two weeks later, in late December 1968, Kitchingman was interviewed by a Grafton Bishop and appointed to Lismore parish, which included the church-run North Coast Children’s Home.
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