AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
EDITORIAL HERALD SUN MAY 21, 2013
WHEN Archbishop Denis Hart replied “better late than never” after being asked why the Catholic Church had taken 18 years to defrock a paedophile priest, there was what might be called a disbelieving silence.
A moment’s reflection might have allowed Archbishop Hart to reconsider what was at least offensive and at worst suggested his own attitude to child sex abuse might need to change.
“Better never” such crimes were committed.
As reported in the Herald Sun, the Archbishop was being questioned over the case of Father Desmond Gannon, who was jailed in 2009 for having molested an altar boy on several occasions between 1968 and 1969. Accusations had been made against the priest in the late 1980s, but no request had been made to Rome to have him defrocked until 2012.
Archbishop Hart’s response that reporting the paedophile priest was hampered because the priest had been sent to jail and because of changes to church law do little to explain what the church’s critics regard as a cover-up.
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