AUSTRALIA
7 News
Paul Maguire, AAP
July 11, 2013
A retired Catholic bishop has admitted that he found the area of child abuse so distasteful that he didn’t look at the files of priests under his care.
One of the files was so big that Bishop Michael Malone couldn’t jump over it, he told the special NSW government commission of inquiry.
The former Maitland-Newcastle bishop appeared before the inquiry for a second day of evidence on Thursday.
Barrister assisting the commission, Julia Lonergan SC, asked the bishop why he didn’t think child protection was his responsibility from 1995, when he started in his Hunter Valley diocese, to 2004, when he first took some action.
“I wasn’t fully aware of the extent of the issue, I was on a sharp learning curve,” he replied.
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