AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
July 11, 2013
Catherine Armitage
Senior Writer
All the retiring Bishop Leo Clarke did when handing over the Maitland-Newcastle Catholic diocese to successor Bishop Michael Malone in 1995 was slide an ancient ornamental cross across the desk and point to a ”rather large briefcase that sat in the corner of his office”, Bishop Malone says.
Bishop Malone asked him, ”Are you going to show me where the skeletons are, where the secret things are?” But Bishop Clarke merely responded, ”Ah, you will find out,” Bishop Malone testified on Wednesday.
The state inquiry into alleged police and church cover-ups of child sexual abuse by priests in the diocese heard evidence that by then Bishop Malone knew of sexual abuse allegations against the disgraced priest Denis McAlinden and was aware of suspicions about another priest.
Bishop Malone told the inquiry that although one of his first tasks as bishop was to continue the process of defrocking McAlinden, he did not remember reading McAlinden’s personnel file during his 16 years as bishop. Bishop Malone, who retired in 2011, said he would have personally placed letters and correspondence in McAlinden’s file ”as matters came in” concerning the two victims he knew about in 1995, but ”I don’t recollect that I actually sat down and read the file”.
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