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  Priest Keeps His Job

By Catherine Hockley
Herald Sun (Melbourne, Australia)
January 21, 2004

A CATHOLIC priest who admits to having sex with a teenage boy will not be removed from his Williamstown parish.

The Melbourne archdiocese of the Catholic church has rejected calls for Father Barry Robinson to be given a job without contact with children.

Vicar-General Les Tomlinson said yesterday parishioners had supported Fr Robinson at masses at the weekend with applause. "He is not a pedophile," Monsignor Tomlinson said.

"There are no plans at this stage to terminate his appointment."

Last week the church confirmed reports Fr Robinson had a relationship with a 16-year-old boy while serving in Boston in the US in the 1990s.

Monsignor Tomlinson said Fr Robinson had completed an "intensive course" in Canada to "address the situation".

Fr Robinson was installed as an assistant priest in 1997 at St Mary of the Immaculate Conception at Williamstown, next door to a primary school, by the then-Melbourne archbishop, George Pell.

A condition of his position was that Robinson's contact with children at the school be restricted.

 
 

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