AUSTRALIA/NEW GUINEA
The Age
[with video]
October 9, 2014
Rory Callinan
Investigative journalist
The Papua New Guinea-based Catholic priest ordered by the church to return to Australia after Fairfax Media revealed his alleged involvement in Australian child abuse cases appears to have stalled his departure by going into hospital.
The Catholic Church paid more than $100,000 to victims who alleged abuse by Father Roger Mount when he was a brother with the Catholic St John of God Order running children’s homes in NSW and Victoria in the 1960s and 1970s.
He moved to Papua New Guinea in the 1980s and became a Catholic priest – most recently in the Sogeri Parish about 45km north-east of Port Moresby – despite the allegations of child abuse being reported to the Catholic Church in Australia.
This week the Herald revealed that despite the abuse allegations, Mount was still operating as the priest in the remote parish and had been ignoring instructions to leave for more than two years and was living in the country illegally.
The Port Moresby Dioceses, which oversees Sogeri Parish, issued a statement saying Mount was to be sent back to Australia.
Port Moresby Diocese vicar-general Father Ben Fleming said Mount was to be collected on Thursday and taken to transit accommodation in Port Moresby where his return to Australia would be undertaken.
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