AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
Read the Bishop’s letter here
Read the Herald stories that started it all here
MAITLAND-Newcastle Bishop Michael Malone described the Newcastle Herald as ‘‘the enemy’’ in a bitter but ultimately unpublished message to Catholics in 2007 after the newspaper first exposed Church knowledge of notorious Hunter paedophile priests.
The message, titled ‘‘Trial by Media’’, has not seen the light of day until now after the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry released hundreds of documents to the public last week, including previously secret Church documents dating back to the late 1940s.
The documents form part of the commission’s investigation of Church and police handling of allegations involving paedophile priests Denis McAlinden and Jim Fletcher.
The then Bishop Malone’s ‘‘Trial by Media’’ message was written for the diocese’s Aurora magazine after Herald articles in September and October 2007 quoted documents proving Catholic Church officials knew about McAlinden and another notorious paedophile priest, Vince Ryan, for decades.
In it Bishop Malone:
● accused the newspaper of a ‘‘concerted attack’’ on the diocese;
● accused journalists of ‘‘personal attacks’’ on clergy;
● accused the newspaper of raising allegations against clergy only after they were dead;
● accused police of providing intelligence to the Herald which resulted in ‘‘attention [being] diverted from their own inability to process these matters adequately’’;
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