A seven member panel has begun work to determine the future of two Catholic priests who were criticised in the NSW Special Commission of Inquiry into child sex abuse in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.
Father Bill Burston and Monsignor Allan Hart were both labelled as inconsistent and unsatisfactory witnesses, who along with several other priests knew of the crimes committed by Denis McAlinden and James Fletcher, but didn’t go to authorities.
In a column written in the Diocese’s Aurora magazine, Bishop Bill Wright has named four of the seven member panel.
Patricia Crennan is a senior educator in Catholic Schools who assisted in establishing a Catholic School’s Office child protection regime in Parramatta. She’s joined by the Very Rev Chris de Souza who is one of the Vicars General of Parramatta, Kenneth Handley, a retired Nsw Court of Appeals judge and Emeritus Professor Terry Lovat from the University of Newcastle. There are three confidential members of the panel comprising a serving police officer, a solicitor and a retired teacher.
Bishop Wright says one of the panel members is a survivor of sexual abuse committed by a Catholic priest, and none of the confidential members had been parishioners of McAlinden or Fletcher.
Bishop Wright says he hopes to get final advice from the panel in October.
“As soon as the advice is duly considered by those most immediately affected, it will be published on the diocese’s website.
The Catholic Church has been criticised for leaving Father Burston and Monsignor Hart in parish ministry following the findings of the Special Commission.
