AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites Australia researcher.
This Broken Rites article demonstrates how three Catholic Church leaders in Australia — Archbishop Francis Little, Archbishop George Pell and Archbishop Denis Hart — allowed a Melbourne priest (Father Barry Robinson) to continue ministering after he admitted having sex with a 16-year-old boy.
According to documents filed in a United States court, Father Robinson has admitted having sex with the boy on three occasions on church premises during a visit to the Boston diocese in the United States. Father Robinson left the United States in April 1994 before U.S. civil authorities could queston him about the matter.
Church leaders managed to keep the Boston matter a secret for the next ten years. The silence was broken in January 2004, when a U.S. legal firm instigated civil action against the Boston diocese on behalf of victims of Boston clergy. The legal firm had obtained discovery of church documents, which the firm filed in court, relating to the Boston diocese’s handling of clergy sexual abuse. Among the church documents (filed in court) was some material relating to Fr Barry Robinson. The church documents regarding Robinson were reported in an article in the Boston Globe newspaper on 14 January 2004.
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