AUSTRALIA
The Australian
DAN BOX THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 04, 2014
THE Catholic diocese at the centre of a state inquiry into church child sex abuse has spent more than $22 million reaching settlements with victims, with further negotiations about compensation payments continuing as recently as last week.
The Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, in the NSW Hunter Valley, said yesterday that five priests were known to have abused 162 children over several decades: the earliest recorded case was in 1949 and the most recent in 1995.
Bishop Bill Wright also said he was considering whether three senior priests, including a retired bishop and former vicar general, should be withdrawn from ministry after being criticised in the report of the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry, released last Friday.
Both parishioners and priests of the diocese had been hard hit by the long-running abuse scandal, Bishop Wright said. Attendances at mass were now among the lowest in the country.
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