AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Wednesday 25 June 2014
Towards Healing, the process the Australian Catholic church used to deal with allegations of child sexual abuse, did not have Vatican approval, a royal commission has heard.
Archbishop Philip Wilson told the commission on Wednesday how a formal decree he made when he was bishop of Wollongong to stop a priest about whom there had been complaints, was nullified by a powerful Vatican body.
The archbishop is in the box for the second day explaining how he dealt with John Nestor, a priest who was defrocked by Pope Benedict in 2008.
Complaints about Nestor dated back to 1991.
In 1996 he was found guilty of indecent assault of a teenage altar boy but was acquitted on appeal in 1997.
The archbishop said he used the Towards Healing protocol – the internal process set up by the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference – to have Nestor assessed after he was acquitted.
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