AUSTRALIA
Echo Netdaily
Annette Blackwell, AAP
A senior Catholic official had to be released from a vow of secrecy before he could freely give evidence to the royal commission into child sexual abuse.
Monsignor Brian Rayner was chancellor and vicar-general in the Archdiocese of Sydney when abuse victim John Ellis sought redress for abuse suffered when he was an altar boy at Bass Hill, in Sydney between 1974 and 1979.
Monsignor Rayner told counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, that he had gone to the Papal Nuncio to be released from a vow of secrecy he took when he held the chancellor’s position in Sydney.
The nuncio, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Pope’s diplomat in Australia, is based in Canberra.
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