AUSTRALIA
WA Today

[with documents]

Andrew Elstermann

Documents tendered to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse have revealed that Bunbury Bishop John Goody agreed to hire a priest in 1959 – despite knowing he had previously sexually abused a number of boys.

In June 1958, Father William Kevin Glover was removed as a superior and parish priest in Victoria for “immoral and criminal sexual behaviour with boys and male adolescents”.

He was given a formal canonical warning and sent to a 30-day penitential retreat in Armidale, NSW.

Having been assigned a new parish, Glover was brought to Sydney in July 1959 and given a second canonical warning for committing similar offences.

Despite this, an agreement was reached in early September that Father Glover would be accepted into the Catholic Diocese of Bunbury on a three-year trial, following an appeal for priests from Bunbury’s Bishop Goody.