AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Michael Safi
theguardian.com, Thursday 9 October 2014
The founder of Sydney’s pentecostal “megachurch” Hillsong, Brian Houston, says he was “totally devastated” and broke down crying after being told his father, Frank, also a high-profile preacher, had been accused of child molestation.
But the pastor defended not referring the allegations that his father had molested a seven-year-old boy in Sydney more than 30 years earlier to the police, despite having no doubt “it was criminal conduct”.
Houston told the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse on Thursday that the revelations about his father had hit him in “waves”.
“I was like, ‘Homosexual?’ getting my head around that, then thinking, ‘A minor? Hold on, we’re not just talking about homosexual, we’re talking about paedophilia’,” he said.
“I cried, I went home and I was devastated to be honest with you, I was totally devastated.”
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