Bishop hints at possibility of pedophile ring

THE Catholic Bishop of Newcastle said it was possible a pedophile ring once existed among its clergy.

Bishop Bill Wright

THE Catholic Bishop of Newcastle, whose northern NSW diocese has allegedly experienced some of the worst child sex abuse, said it was possible a pedophile ring once existed among its clergy.

Bishop Bill Wright said his staff had "tried to join the dots" between individual abusive priests.

"One priest who was abusing someone was in a parish next to another priest who turned out to be an abuser. Or one known abuser contributing funds to the defence of another known abuser," Bishop Wright said.

"We've not exactly been able to join those dots. What we haven't got is evidence of them passing victims around, what you would call a ring. It's possible."

The Maitland-Newcastle diocese has paid out at least $15 million in settlements to more than 100 victims, while unofficial estimates put the total number of victims at hundreds more.

At least two of its priests have been convicted for serial pedophile abuse, with at least one more now on trial. The former vicar-general, Tom Brennan, died this year while facing charges of child abuse and covering up abuse committed by another priest.

Some of this historic abuse took place with the knowledge of other senior clergy, Bishop Wright said.

These officials sent the alleged perpetrators for medical treatment, moved them between parishes or lost track of where they were living, without reporting their alleged crimes to police.

"(There was a) lack of knowledge, a lack of experience, a lack of established procedures . . . but I won't close my mind ultimately to criminal conspiracy," Bishop Wright said.

"If there are people who have got things to answer for, living or dead, (if) what they were doing was in the lines of criminal cover-up, let them be prosecuted."

Among the documents seized by NSW police investigating one alleged cover-up is a 1976 letter to Bishop Wright's predecessor, Leo Clarke, suggesting he had direct knowledge of alleged abuse by at least one priest.

"He feels no such inclination towards mature females but towards the little ones," the letter said. "I have never heard of this condition before and . . . we do not think it can be serious."

Attitudes towards child sex abuse, as well as the formal safeguards and procedures in place to prevent it, had changed dramatically since that time, Bishop Wright said.

"I'm not trying to excuse Bishop Clarke or anyone else, but just to say how unaware most people in the community were at that time. "I think he will possibly share that ignominy with directors of state education and hospital administration and others . . . of that time."

The bishop said he welcomed the inquiry, particularly as its focus would extend to other institutions and he hoped it would help people come to terms with the hurt they had endured. "It's like any of those things where you see the worst sides of of human nature, these things are oppressive, these things are just appalling," he said.

"I think it will take some time for the community to get over the hurt and disillusion."