Bishop Didn't Read Disgraced Priest's File, Inquiry Told

By Catherine Armitage
Sydney Morning Herald
July 11, 2013

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/bishop-didnt-read-disgraced-priests-file-inquiry-told-20130710-2pqh8.html

"Are you going to show me where the skeletons are, where the secret things are?" What Bishop Michael Malone said to his predecessor, Bishop Leo Clarke.

All the retiring Bishop Leo Clarke did when handing over the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese to successor Bishop Michael Malone in 1995 was slide an ancient ornamental cross across the desk and point to a ''rather large briefcase that sat in the corner of his office'', Bishop Malone says.

Bishop Malone asked him, ''Are you going to show me where the skeletons are, where the secret things are?'' But Bishop Clarke merely responded, ''Ah, you will find out,'' Bishop Malone testified on Wednesday.

The state inquiry into alleged police and church cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests in the diocese heard evidence that by then Bishop Malone knew of sexual abuse allegations against the disgraced priest Denis McAlinden and was aware of suspicions about another priest.

Bishop Malone told the inquiry that although one of his first tasks as bishop was to continue the process of defrocking McAlinden, he did not remember reading McAlinden's personnel file during his 16 years as bishop. Bishop Malone, who retired in 2011, said he would have personally placed letters and correspondence in McAlinden's file ''as matters came in'' concerning the two victims he knew about in 1995, but ''I don't recollect that I actually sat down and read the file''.

Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan, SC, put it to Bishop Malone that it ''defies belief that you would not acquaint yourself with his history, given the matters [the two victims] allege''.

He agreed that it did defy belief: ''In hindsight, yes.''

But he said that in 1995 he believed he had ''enough to go on'' to continue the defrocking process.

Letters tendered to the inquiry show Bishop Clarke knew of allegations against McAlinden from at least 1976. A psychiatrist's report sent to the bishop in 1987 said McAlinden volunteered that the first allegation went back to 1954.

Bishop Malone gave evidence on Wednesday that he had not been aware of these documents until they were shown to him in the past few weeks by his legal team for the purposes of the inquiry. He said he had never raised any matters regarding McAlinden with Bishop Clarke. He made social visits to the retired bishop's home, but Bishop Clarke had ''made it very clear that when he was retired, he was out of it [and] had nothing more to do with any of the decision-making or history that preceded him''.

As for the documents, Bishop Malone said: ''I don't know where your investigating team found all those letters. Presumably they would have accessed the archives of the diocese and that is a luxury I didn't have.''

Bishop Malone said he had been bishop of a busy diocese and ''didn't have time to go trolling through the archive especially for I don't know what I might try to find''.

He said he had ''no idea there was other information''. When he had looked in the briefcase soon after becoming bishop, ''there was not much in it anyway'', although he had ''trouble actually remembering''.

McAlinden died in Western Australia in 2005 without ever being convicted.

The inquiry continues.