AUSTRALIA
SBS

A senior priest has told an inquiry into child abuse in Newcastle NSW that he didn’t know a pedophile priest had been retired for ‘health’ reasons.

A pedophile NSW Hunter Valley Catholic priest was retired for “health” reasons, given a one-way plane ticket to England and paid an on-going “food allowance”.

The secret deal involving Father Denis McAlinden was done in February and March 1993.

But the priest second-in-charge of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese at the time, Monsignor Allan Hart, said he knew nothing about it, a special commission of inquiry in Newcastle heard on Friday.

Msgr Hart said the now dead bishop of the time, Leo Clarke, must have decided without consultation to remove Fr McAlinden’s right to operate as a priest.