AUSTRALIA
The Australian
JUNE 27, 2014
Dan Box
Crime Reporter
Sydney
A CATHOLIC priest barred from working publicly over allegations of child abuse continued to say mass and celebrate weddings in Australia and overseas while the Vatican spent years debating what action to take against him, the royal commission has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is investigating the church’s handling of John Gerard Nestor, who was defrocked in 2008, nearly 20 years after the church became aware of complaints against him.
Despite being suspended while the Vatican decided his fate, Mr Nestor wrote to his Australian bishop in about 2003, saying he was working at a US university where “50 people have returned to the sacraments as a result”.
“I have even recently celebrated marriages of university students … with no objection from the bishop,” Mr Nestor wrote in a separate letter sent to the bishop of Wollongong in 2004.
Mr Nestor was barred from working publicly as a priest in 1997, following his conviction and subsequent acquittal on appeal for indecent assault, while the church investigated other abuse allegations against him.
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