2023-09-22 08:59:04
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — The Vatican has shared with police the findings of an internal investigation into a former Australian bishop accused of sexually abusing minors, and the Church will cooperate fully with criminal investigations, a cleric said Friday.
The Catholic Church announced the delivery of its report on former bishop Christopher Saunders three days following the Western Australian police announced that they had requested a copy.
“The church will continue to offer full transparency and cooperation with the Western Australian Police,” Bishop Michael Morrissey, who replaced Saunders as head of the Diocese of Broome in 2021, said in a statement.
“The church encourages anyone who has experienced abuse, or suspects abuse within the community, to come forward and report it to the police,” Morrissey added.
Saunders, 73, denied any wrongdoing and refused to participate in the Vatican investigation, which began last year, according to the Church.
The religious resigned in 2021 from his position as bishop of Broome, a diocese in the Outback larger in area than France but with a population of just 50,000 people, following the police announced the closure of an investigation into sexual crimes. Saunders had resigned a year earlier, when the allegations appeared in the press.
The Vatican confirmed this week that it had completed its investigation into Saunders, which it said might not have begun before the police work ended.
The confirmation came following media reported Monday that the 200-page Vatican report concluded that Saunders likely sexually assaulted four indigenous youths and may have pressured 67 other indigenous youths and men.
The Church refuses to make public the details of the accusations it reviewed.
Police had conducted two investigations into allegations once morest Saunders between 2018 and 2020. Prosecutors said then that there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
When requesting the report from the Vatican, the police explained in a statement on Tuesday that “if more information comes to light, it will be investigated.”
According to Morrissey, the Holy See report was delivered to Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Allan Adams, although he did not specify when.
The Church and the police “remain in constant and collaborative contact on this matter,” Morrissey said.
Police declined to comment Friday regarding what they planned to do with the report.
Saunders, who still retains the title of bishop, is now the most senior cleric accused of sexual abuse in Australia, within a wider scandal that has engulfed the Church around the world.
Cardinal George Pell was the third-highest cleric at the Vatican in 2018, when he was convicted by an Australian court of sexually assaulting two 13-year-old boys in the Melbourne Cathedral choir in 1996, when he was archbishop.
Pell spent 13 months in prison before the convictions were overturned on appeal. He maintained his innocence until his death in Rome in January.
Saunders began working in Broome as a deacon in 1975 and became a bishop in 1996.
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