AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
December 2, 2015
Beau Donelly
Reporter
A former senior Catholic church official has admitted that he had no excuse for failing to escalate complaints about predator priests.
Bishop Peter Connors, who worked as secretary to archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little from 1974 to 1976, and vicar-general of the Melbourne archdiocese from 1976 to 1987, told the child abuse royal commission the former archbishop had failed to respond to complaints against clergy as late as the 1990s, despite being aware of allegations against priests decades earlier.
He agreed with Archbishop Denis Hart’s assessment earlier this week that a “paralysis” plagued Archbishop Little’s office.
On Monday, the commission heard that children were in danger of being targeted by paedophile priests for decades because of the Melbourne archdiocese’s failure to respond to complaints.
“There was a complete failure of the Archbishop and his advisors to deal with these issues,” Bishop Connors told the royal commission on Wednesday.
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