Paedophile Priest Was Mongrel to Us: Victims

Newcastle Herald
July 12, 2013

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/1635129/paedophile-priest-was-mongrel-to-us-victims/?cs=305

TWO sisters sat in a court this week and silently raged at the paedophile priest who molested them more than five decades ago, and the Church that failed to stop him.

"When his name's said I've got this picture in my mind from all those years ago," said one of the sisters about Denis McAlinden.

"I just wish they'd call him mongrel."

The other sister, whose daughters were also victims of McAlinden, described the "harrowing" experience of learning this week that Maitland-Newcastle Monsignor Patrick Cotter wrote to Bishop Leo Clarke in 1976 about McAlinden's "inclinations . . . towards the little ones".

Her daughters were molested by the priest in the 1980s.

"He should have been stopped back then, when they knew," she said.

"I'm still dealing with that at the moment, how much they knew.

"All they were worried about was the good name of the Church, not the people putting money in the plate every week or the children being molested."

The legacy of McAlinden's offending had torn the women's families apart until recently, when the sisters reunited and agreed to attend the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry together.

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Details about the priest's offences against so many other children had been devastating, they said.

"When I heard the word 'rape' I just went cold," said one sister.

But it will not stop her returning next week as more Catholic priests give evidence.

"I've decided I'm going to be here every day until the end. Not just for me, but for all the survivors."