AUSTRALIA
Financial Review
Tony Abbott first met John Nestor at the St Patrick’s seminary in Manly in 1984, when they were training for the Catholic priesthood.
They became friends and kept in touch several times a year even after their life journeys went in different directions.
Abbott went into politics. Nestor completed his training and became a priest in the Wollongong diocese of NSW.
When Nestor found himself before a Wollongong magistrate in 1997 charged over the alleged indecent assault of a teenage altar boy, Abbott came to his defence with a character reference.
Asked to describe his friend, the then parliamentary secretary to the Employment Minister said: “An extremely upright and virtuous man. I guess one of the things that I like very much about John when I first met him was his maturity – intellectual, social, emotional. And he was, to that extent I guess, a beacon of humanity at the seminary.”
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.