AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX From: The Australian July 20, 2013
ONE of the most senior officials in the modern Catholic Church was among a committee of clerics who dealt privately with claims a priest sexually abused a child, and did not report this to police, an inquiry has heard.
The NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into church child abuse yesterday heard that Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the national bishops’ conference, interviewed one of the priest’s victims in 1993.
The priest, Denis McAlinden, was subsequently asked to retire, a decision confirmed in writing by his bishop who said it had been made “in light of your ill health”, the inquiry heard.
McAlinden was given a one-way ticket to England, paid for with church funds, and his diocese continued to pay him a stipend from its Sick Clergy Fund. He continued to work as a priest, and to have access to children, the inquiry has heard.
Giving evidence to the inquiry yesterday, a former vicar-general of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, Allan Hart, said: “My understanding was Denis and Father Lucas were trying to work some system out.
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