AUSTRALIA
Newcastle Herald
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 John Ellis sought redress for abuse he 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.
Monsignor Rayner said the nuncio advised him to give “whatever evidence was required by the royal commission”. Had he not spoken to the nuncio, he would have been in a dilemma as to what would be appropriate to reveal and “perhaps what should be kept private”.
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