AUSTRALIA
Maitland Mercury
By ELLE WATSON July 11, 2013
The former head of the then Maitland Diocese denied knowledge of the existence of church letters that exposed paedophile priests as far back as the 1950s.
Bishop Michael Malone said he had never seen a series of letters filed in the diocese office that were found by the special commission of inquiry staff investigating concealment of child sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.
“I’ve seen letters and statements in the last two weeks I’ve never seen before,” Bishop Malone told a packed gallery at yesterday’s inquiry.
Counsel assisting the inquiry, Julia Lonergan SC, asked Bishop Malone why, in his 16 years overseeing the diocese between 1995 and 2011, he had never seen the documents on paedophile activities by priests Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher.
“I didn’t have time to go trawling through archives,” the bishop said.
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