AUSTRALIA
Illawarra Mercury
By ANGELA THOMPSON Dec. 19, 2014
Wollongong Catholic Bishop Peter Ingham erred by not making public the reasons behind the 2008 defrocking of priest John Gerard Nestor, the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse has found.
In a damning set of nine findings handed down on Friday, the royal commission takes aim at the Catholic Church and some of its officials for not making notes of potentially incriminating internal meetings with Nestor, and for the five years it took for an internal appeal process to run its course.
The royal commission further found the decision by some clergy to have Nestor publicly participate in church services “undermined” the efforts of other priests to protect children.
Nestor was convicted of aggravated indecent assault in 1997, and acquitted seven months later.
He denied the central allegation in the case against him, that he slept on the same mattress as a 15-year-old altar boy.
He was defrocked by decree of the Pope in 2008, after further allegations surfaced and after long periods on administrative leave.
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