AUSTRALIA
9 News
A retired Catholic bishop who admitted to putting the church’s reputation before child sexual abuse victims is due to face more questions at a royal commission.
Bishop Brian Heenan is expected to return to the witness box when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse resumes in central Queensland on Monday.
Bishop Heenan was the head of the Catholic diocese in Rockhampton in the 1990s when former residents of the Neerkol orphanage came forward with historical child sexual abuse allegations.
The religious leader came under fire for initially dismissing the allegations as “scurrilous” and for failing to take action against the priest at the centre of the claims.
At the royal commission on Friday, Bishop Heenan conceded he had been more concerned with protecting the reputation of the Catholic church than with supporting abuse victims.
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