Bishop Christopher Saunders of Broome tries to play a digeridoo throughout a World Youth Day 2008 media occasion in Sydney, Australia, on April 17, 2008. The Vatican is contemplating the findings of a church investigation into “very severe and deeply distressing” little one sexual abuse allegations in opposition to former Australian Bishop Saunders, a church chief stated on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2023. Credit score: AP/Rob Griffith
CANBERRA, Australia — The Vatican had shared with police findings of an inside investigation of a former Australian bishop over little one intercourse abuse allegations and the church would totally cooperate with prison investigators, a cleric stated on Friday.
The Catholic Church introduced the handover of its investigation report into former Bishop Christopher Saunders three days after the Western Australia Police Power publicly revealed it had requested a duplicate.
“The church will proceed to supply full transparency and cooperation with W.A. Police,” Bishop Michael Morrissey, who changed Saunders within the Broome Diocese in 2021, stated in an announcement.
“The church encourages anybody who has skilled abuse, or suspects abuse throughout the group, to come back ahead and report it to police,” Morrissey added.
Saunders, now 73, denied any wrongdoing and refused to take part within the Vatican investigation, which started final 12 months, the church stated.
He resigned in 2021 as bishop of Broome, an Outback diocese of northwest Australia bigger than France however with a inhabitants of solely 50,000, after police introduced they’d dropped a intercourse crime investigation. He had stood down a 12 months earlier after media reported the allegations.
The Vatican this week confirmed it had accomplished its Saunders investigation that it stated couldn’t have begun earlier than the police investigation had ended.
The affirmation adopted media studies on Monday that the 200-page Vatican report discovered Saunders possible sexually assaulted 4 Indigenous youths and probably groomed one other 67 Indigenous youths and males.
The church refuses to publicly element the allegations that have been investigated.
Police had performed two investigations into allegations in opposition to Saunders between 2018 and 2020. Prosecutors had concluded there was inadequate proof to put fees.
In requesting the Vatican report, a police assertion stated on Tuesday: “If additional data involves gentle, police will examine.”
Morrissey stated the Vatican report had been handed to Western Australia Deputy Police Commissioner Allan Adams. Morrissey didn’t say when.
The church and police “stay in ongoing and collaborative contact on the matter,” Morrissey stated.
Police on Friday declined to touch upon what they meant to do with the report.
Saunders, who continues to carry the church title of bishop, is now Australia’s most senior cleric recognized to be accused of kid abuse in a scandal that has enveloped the church around the globe.
Cardinal George Pell was the third highest-ranking cleric within the Vatican when he was convicted in an Australian courtroom in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral in 1996, when Pell was an archbishop.
Pell spent 13 months in jail earlier than the convictions have been overturned on attraction. He maintained his innocence till his demise in Rome in January.
Saunders started working in Broome as a deacon in 1975 and have become bishop in 1996.