AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Danny Morgan
Updated February 20, 2016
A Catholic priest will stop saying mass at a Melbourne primary school where parents have pulled their children out of the fortnightly service as part of a protest over sexual abuse allegations.
Earlier this month dozens of parents would not allow their children to attend a school mass at St John Vianney Primary in Parkdale.
They said they had lost faith in their parish priest, Father John Walshe, following revelations last year that a Catholic Church investigation accepted he had sexually abused an 18-year-old trainee priest in 1982.
Father Walshe denies he abused the seminarian, saying their relationship was consensual.
In this week’s St John Vianney school newsletter the principal informed parents that Father Walshe would not be celebrating the fortnightly mass for the time being, with an associate priest stepping in.
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