AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX
From:The Australian
January 18, 2013
ALLEGATIONS of child sexual abuse have been made against 23 priests in the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, many of whom continue to receive financial support at the discretion of the Archbishop of Sydney, George Pell.
The revelation of the number of priests facing such allegations is contained in a file note prepared for the cardinal last year by his chancellor, John Usher.
This document is itself contained in the Whitlam report into the church’s handling of a pedophile priest — identified only as “F” — released yesterday.
The file note suggests all the child abuse allegations against the 23 priests were made since the establishment in 1997 of the church’s Towards Healing protocol for dealing with such claims, although this could not be verified.
“Fourteen of those priests are deceased and the nine remaining priests have all been removed from active ministry,” the document states.
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