AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
The Catholic Church has paid settlement money to two alleged victims of Father Peter Julian Brock in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. The two male recipients, who are siblings, alleged that Father Brock began abusing them 40 years ago when they were in their early teens.
The settlement money was paid by the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, which is one of the eleven Catholic dioceses in New South Wales.
The Newcastle Herald newspaper stated on 12 September 2014:
‘The Catholic Church paid compensation to the brothers after a church investigation … found the priest had committed “a range and pattern of behaviour that constituted sexual misconduct” between 1968 and 1975.’
This article in the Herald also reported that Father Peter Brock has died, aged 69. Or, as a church website for clergy puts it: Rev. Peter Brock has “gone to God” (on 11 September 2014).
Broken Rites has looked up Father Peter Brock in the archives of the Australian Catholic Directory. From the 1970s until 2001, he was listed as working in several parishes of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese.
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