AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN MARCH 12, 2014
CATHOLIC Church officials decided it was not possible to establish whether an allegation of child abuse by a priest was true or false because they were unable to ask the priest himself if the alleged abuse took place.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard that Cardinal George Pell was repeatedly briefed on the process of dealing with the claim, brought by former altar boy John Ellis.
Mr Ellis contacted the church in May 2002 to say he had been sexually abused by a Sydney priest over several years during the 1970s. By the time of the complaint, the priest in question, Aidan Duggan, had dementia and was never questioned over the allegations.
In December 2002 the church’s Director of Professional Standards, John Davoren, wrote to the then-Archbishop of Sydney, saying, “It is now clear the facts of this case can never be satisfactorily clarified.”
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