AUSTRALIA
SBS

AAP

The Catholic Church buried child sex abuse complaints and engaged in a cover-up to protect its reputation, Melbourne’s archbishop says.

Archbishop Denis Hart says the church missed numerous chances to stop predatory pedophile priests.

He says his predecessor Frank Little endangered children by failing to act on credible information about abuse by Fr Wilfred Baker, Fr Nazareno Fasciale and Fr Ronald Pickering.

“(Baker is) an utterly appalling case of terrible sexual abuse and an example, along with Fasciale and Pickering, of the archbishop failing to act on credible information about criminal abuse by a priest,” Archbishop Hart said.

Priests were moved to another parish after abuse complaints and parishioners were not told the real reason they left, the child abuse royal commission heard.