AUSTRALIA
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Victoria’s chief Anglican, Philip Freier (see previous posting), has fronted the Victorian Parliamentary enquiry into clerical child sexual abuse, but his underling Bishops have not. They do not seem to have much to say on the topic at all, apparently preferring to leave it all to their boss.
The exception is the Bendigo guy, Andrew Curnow, who has previously worked in New York and Virginia. He acknowledges seven cases of “inappropriate behaviour” in the past nine years. These were passed on to his Director of Professional Standards, and believed that only one of them was passed on to police. He claims that “We have no evidence to believe sexual abuse is widespread” in his diocese, although he admits there could be more where victims approached police first.
Archbishop Freier’s bishops seem to be much more concerned with same sex relationships.
The Gippsland guy, John McIntyre, recently appointed an openly gay priest, and supports marriage equality. The Ballarat guy, Barry Weatherill has previously said that same-sex couples should not be discriminated against in any way by the law and should have access to the same superannuation and the like, but was not in favour of marriage equality. Weatherill had been in charge when an openly gay priest quit after complaining about “persecution” for being in a lesbian relationship.
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