AUSTRALIA
Pannone Blog (United Kingdom)
The Roman Catholic Church is again embroiled in claims of a cover-up over its handling of child sexual assault allegations involving priests. This time in Australia. I have reported in the past abuse cases there, but recently our attention has focused on the Lynn case in the USA.
The ABC’s Four Corners program has revealed the church apparently failed to pass on abuse admissions by a priest to police.
Four Corners says it obtained documents showing a New South Wales priest, who is accused of abusing young boys, made clear admissions during a meeting with three senior priests, but they never referred the matter to police.
The programme also detailed several cases in which priests were merely moved on when the church was made aware of sexual abuse claims against them. This is a familiar practice identified in both the UK and US.
The argument is that the allegations should have been referred to police immediately, and the question is whether members of the clergy who failed to do so have broken the law?
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