AUSTRALIA
ABC News
Retired Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who oversaw the Ballarat diocese during a notorious period of sexual abuse by clergy, has left a “catastrophic legacy”, an abuse survivor has said.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne announced Bishop Mulkearns’ death from cancer at age 85 on Monday.
Bishop Mulkearns, who retired in 1997, was to be requestioned by the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse after Cardinal George Pell said he was not briefed properly about abuse in Ballarat.
The retired bishop told a commission hearing in March he was not sure if he knew child abuse was a crime during his time in charge of the Ballarat diocese, but he knew it was wrong.
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