AUSTRALIA
7 News
By Peta Carlyon, ABC
Updated January 23, 2013
The Victorian Government is being urged to introduce swift legislation to force members of the Catholic Church to report child sexual abuse within its ranks.
Giving evidence at the Parliamentary Inquiry into abuse within the Church and other institutions today, former Catholic Priest Phil O’Donnell accused the Melbourne Archdiocese of repeatedly covering up abuse allegations since the 1950s.
Mr O’Donnell told the inquiry he lived and worked with two serious offenders, at parishes in Gladstone Park and Sunbury, in the 1970s and 80s.
He said he became aware young boys were being ‘ruined’, but when he and one of the families affected raised their case with the then Archbishop Frank Little, it was ignored.
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