AUSTRALIA
Daily Mail (UK)
By AUSTRALIAN ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: 11 June 2014
The royal commission into child sex abuse is investigating how the Vatican dealt with allegations of abuse against its priests in Australia.
Commission chair Peter McClellan has written to the Secretary of State of the Vatican City, asking for a copy of all documents held in Rome relating to complaints of sexual abuse by priests and religious leaders in Australia.
Justice McClellan hopes the documents will shed light on how complaints were handled by the Catholic Church.
“We have asked for copies of documents which reveal the nature and extent of communications between Catholic congregations in Australia and the Holy See,” Justice McClellan will tell Griffith University in Brisbane on Thursday.
“From these documents we should be able to determine how church authorities in Australia, under the guidance or direction of the Vatican, have responded to individual allegations of abuse.”
The commission has received some documents from the Vatican relating to its upcoming public inquiry of the Wollongong diocese.
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