AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
THE Christian Brothers spent more than $1.1m over 15 years defending paedophile Brother Robert Best before he was finally jailed 2011 after pleading guilty to aggravated indecent assaults against children.
On another occasion, the Catholic Order hired private investigators to investigate victims who had complained to police about one of its members.
Wednesday’s report of the parliamentary inquiry into child abuse slammed the Catholic Church, saying it had “made a deliberate choice to pursue a course of concealing the problem of criminal child abuse.”
Worse, Church leaders had conceded “the Church had adopted a policy of cover-up and that this involved concealing offending, and moving priests and other religious to areas where further abuse then occurred”.
In dealing with the problem, the Church had been motivated by its desire “to protect itself” the Committee found.
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