AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Secret report handed to Christian Brothers bosses in Rome reveals ‘sex underworld’ in some Australian orphanages
JANET FIFE-YEOMANS THE DAILY TELEGRAPH APRIL 26, 2014
A SECRET report handed to Christian Brothers bosses in Rome revealed a “sex underworld” in some of the order’s Australian orphanages, with some monks raping up to 50 boys each.
The report, prepared in the early 1990s by the order’s official historian, contained damning evidence the order’s hierarchy in Australia knew decades earlier about the widespread abuse, but hid it.
“As long as outsiders do not become aware, we may hope for better times after the war,” the principal of the Christian Brothers in Western Australia, Brother PA Conlon, wrote in 1941, according to the report.
In 1935, Brother Conlon had written to another brother about the possibility of “scandals”.
The report, which has never been made public in full, has been obtained by the child sex abuse royal commission. The commission is sitting in Perth next week to investigate the handling of abuse by the Christian Brothers at its four notorious orphanages in Western Australia.
Despite knowing of the abuse, which stretched back at least to 1920, the order negotiated with Catholic rescue societies in the UK and Malta for thousands of child migrants to be shipped to Australia.
Among the homes were Castledare, St Vincent’s, St Mary’s Agricultural School and Bindoon Farm School, all which will be investigated by the royal commission.
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