MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
AAP
December 5, 2017
By Megan Neil
A DAMNING new report reveals how this Archbishop protected a gun-toting Catholic priest at the cost of the children he and others continued to abuse.
A FORMER Melbourne archbishop repeatedly did nothing about a gun-toting priest and others who abused children as he sought to protect the Catholic Church from scandal, an inquiry has found.
Archbishop Frank Little led a culture of secrecy in the Melbourne archdiocese designed to hide child abuse complaints against several priests and protect the church’s reputation, the child abuse royal commission concluded.
Archbishop Little knew about a litany of allegations against Sunbury and Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson ranging from child sexual abuse to complaints about his unpleasant, strange, aggressive and violent conduct.
He did nothing, even when Searson pointed a hand gun at two people, threatened a girl with a knife and showed altar boys a dead body in a coffin.
The archbishop dismissed serious and credible complaints, backing a priest he knew had allegedly raped a woman in 1974 over concerned parishioners and parents.
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