AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail
AAP May 20, 2013
MELBOURNE Archbishop Denis Hart says the Catholic Church taking 18 years to petition for a pedophile priest to be defrocked is “better late than never”.
Father Desmond Gannon was convicted and jailed for sexual offences in 2009 but remains an ordained priest.
A Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse has heard he offended from 1957 to 1979 and was identified to then-Melbourne archbishop George Pell in 1998 as “high risk”.
Yet it wasn’t until 2011 that the Catholic Church in Victoria petitioned Rome for Fr Gannon to be laicised.
Asked at the inquiry on Monday why it had taken so long, current Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart replied “better late than never”.
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