Bishops Attempted to Defrock Priest Denis McAlinden to Hide Pedophilia

By Dan Box
The Australian
July 3, 2013

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/bishops-attempted-to-defrock-priest-denis-mcalinden-to-hide-pedophilia/story-fngburq5-1226673740340

SOME of Australia's most senior Catholic bishops, as well as the pope's representative in Canberra and potentially the Vatican itself, were involved in an attempt to defrock a pedophile priest rather than report his crimes to police.

Three successive bishops in Newcastle, NSW, also had personal knowledge that Father Denis McAlinden was abusing children, while bishops in England, the Philippines and Papua New Guinea were also warned about the allegations against him.

In an exchange of letters with the priest during the 1990s, the late bishop Leo Clarke asked him to petition the Holy See in Rome to request his formal laicisation - effectively ending his career as a priest.

"Your good name will be protected by the confidential nature of this process," Clarke wrote.

"A speedy resolution of this matter would be in your interest as I have it on good authority that some people are threatening to take it to the police."

These letters, as well as others tendered today to the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, show the decision to defrock McAlinden was made in consultation with the Bishops Conference of Australia's most senior clerics.

Clarke also wrote to the apostolic pro-nuncio, the Pope's representative in Canberra, in 1995 asking him to "use his network communications to help expedite ... a very delicate matter".

In this letter, Clarke wrote that, the current General Secretary of the Australian Bishops Conference Brian Lucas had spoken personally to McAlinden about allegations he was abusing children.

"At the interview, Father Denis admitted to Brian Lucas that the accusations were true," the letter said.

The inquiry has heard that church authorities are known to have first received a report that McAlinden was abusing children in 1954, the inquiry has heard.

During the 1970s-1990s, the inquiry has heard, the priest travelled to England, the Phillipines and PNG.

Other letters sent by Clarke to bishops in each of these countries over this time, and which were tendered in evidence, also disclose details of the allegations against McAlinden.

Reverend Lucas is expected to give evidence to the inquiry next week.

The apostolic nuncio in Canberra during the 1990s, Archbishop Franco Brambilla, died in 2003.