AUSTRALIA
Fairfield City Champion
By Paul Bibby
Feb. 13, 2013
The Catholic Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, is among a number of senior church figures who have been ordered to appear at the NSW Commission of Inquiry into the alleged cover-up of child sex abuse by the Catholic Church in the Maitland-Newcastle region.
The summonsing of the archbishop, along with the secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference, Father Brian Lucas, came during the formal opening of the inquiry by Commissioner Margaret Cunneen SC on Wednesday.
The inquiry will examine allegations that members of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese covered up the abuse of young children by the now-deceased priests Father Denis McAlinden and Father James Fletcher.
It will also examine allegations by a child abuse investigator, Detective Chief Inspector Peter Fox, that he was ordered by senior police to stop investigating such matters and had been directed to hand over his files in the Fletcher and McAlinden matters.
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