AUSTRALIA
Sky News
A parish priest should have been removed over his ‘extremely alarming’ behaviour but then Melbourne archbishop Frank Little did nothing, an inquiry has heard.
Former Catholic Education director Monsignor Thomas Doyle agreed Archbishop Little did nothing about parishioners’ complaints about Doveton parish priest Peter Searson.
‘In my opinion he should have be removed from the parish,’ he said.
Monsignor Doyle said he expressed that view ‘constantly to the archbishop’.
But royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan asked Monsignor Doyle why he did not do more himself about Searson’s ‘extremely alarming’ behaviour.
‘I would have thought it was no use to go to the regional bishop. If I couldn’t convince the archbishop I don’t think the regional bishop could have either.’
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