AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
The Broken Rites victim support group helps victims of church-related sexual abuse in Australia.
Here is a list of the most recent articles (written by Broken Rites researchers) published on this website:
This “spiritual director” was abusing children: Brother Colgan Taylor had an exalted role as a “spiritual director” for the Catholic order of Marist Brothers in Australia while he was committing sexual crimes against young children. The reverend brother’s Catholic status gave him access to children and it protected him from exposure until police finally learned of some (but not all) of his crimes (posted 19 May 2013).
Church leaders and the Father McAlinden cover-up: Broken Rites has expanded its article about how Catholic Church authorities protected the paedophile priest Father Denis McAlinden for 40 years while he repeatedly committed sexual crimes against young girls in parishes around Australia. This Broken Rites research (begun in 1994) eventually helped to bring about the New South Wales government’s Commission of Inquiry in 2013, which is investigating how church officials and police handled allegations of child-sex crimes by Father McAlinden and other priests in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese (updated 19 May 2013).
Church kept a priest after a “confidential” settlement: A New South Wales police document (submitted to the state government Commission of Inquiry into church child-abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese) alleges that the church appointed a priest (Father Guy Hartcher, of the Vincentian Fathers) to administer a parish in this diocese after the church had paid a “confidential” settlement to a former pupil from St Stanislaus College, a school conducted by the Vincentian Fathers in Bathurst. The police document indicates that, under the church’s settlement agreement, the church ordered the former pupil to remain totally silent about his alleged abuse — or he would have to give the settlement money back to the church (updated 13 May 2013).
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.