AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Lucy Carter
A Supreme Court justice has ordered that lawyers for the Catholic Church and two women suing it over their alleged child sexual abuse attempt to settle the case outside court.
Two sisters, known for legal reasons as LG and MG, are suing both the estate of the late Maitland-Newcastle Bishop Leo Clarke — who was in charge at the time of the alleged crimes — as well as trustees of the Roman Catholic Church for the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle.
The sisters were allegedly sexually abused by Father Denis McAlinden in the 1970s and 1980s.
McAlinden died in a nursing home in 2005 without ever having been charged in New South Wales.
A 2013 special commission of inquiry found he had a history of sexually abusing children over five decades, and may have abused more than 100 victims.
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