AUSTRALIA
Canberra Times
Christopher Knaus
A cover-up reaching the highest levels of a Catholic order allowed six known child abusers to teach at Canberra’s St Edmund’s College in its first three decades.
Offending brothers were known to some of the Christian Brothers’ most senior clergy before they arrived in Canberra, including its worldwide head in one case, and Australian provincial leaders in at least three others.
The Christian Brothers was long ago found to have protected and harboured child molesters, moving them between its schools and orphanages, and dealing with abuse internally under its forgiving canon law.
Secretly commissioned internal investigations suggested day schools were used to hide offending brothers, while keeping them away from dormitories in a misguided attempt to break their pattern of predation.
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