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The Vatican’s representative in Australia is claiming diplomatic immunity in response to repeated requests for documents that might assist the NSW inquiry into child sex abuse.
The Guardian reported that copies of correspondence released by the commission this week reveal the diplomatic stand-off between the papal nuncio, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, and the chair of the special commission of inquiry, Margaret Cunneen SC.
The Cunneen inquiry was established last November to investigate sexual abuse by two priests of the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, Father Denis McAlinden and Father James Fletcher (both deceased), following allegations made by a NSW police whistleblower, chief inspector Peter Fox.
The NSW crown solicitor’s office made the request on Cunneen’s behalf on 30 August and again on 22 October, asking for copies of any relevant documents held in the archives of the Apostolic Nunciature in Canberra or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome.
Similar requests have been sent to directly Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the CDF, but there has been no reply.
The documents sought relate to “any allegations, complaints, suspicions or reports” about child sexual abuse by McAlinden or Fletcher.
Information has also been requested on an incident in 1995, when Australian church officials asked then papal nuncio Archbishop Franco Brambilla to intervene on their behalf with the papal nuncio of the Philippines.
At the time, it had been discovered that McAlinden was operating as a priest in a remote diocese in the Philippines, despite having had his priestly faculties suspended by his bishop in Australia.
McAlinden, one of Australia’s most notorious paedophile priests, was an Irishman who arrived in Australia in 1949. His diocese of Maitland-Newcastle became aware he was a serious risk to children as early as 1953 but he was moved from parish to parish for more than four decades.
Source
The Guardian
Image of Margaret Cunneen SC: AAP/The Guardian
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