About 30 priests from across the Dunedin Diocese gathered in Dunedin on Wednesday as part of a push to upskill clergy in response to the sexual abuse crisis engulfing the Church. Speakers included Virginia Noonan, director of the Catholic Church in New Zealand’s National Office of Professional Standards which handles sexual abuse complaints involving clergy. Read more
The National Professional Standards Committee (NPSC) has appointed former Christchurch lawyer and mother of two, Virginia Noonan, to the role of Director, National Office of Professional Standards (NOPS). Noonan, who most recently worked as the inaugural safeguarding coordinator for the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, took up this new role in January. NOPS sets out the Read more
Mr Bill Kilgallon, director of the National Office for Professional Standards in New Zealand, says the Catholic Church as yet has no idea how many people in New Zealand may have a father who is or has been a priest. But he says priests’ children have the right to know who their parents are. He Read more
Mr Bill Kilgallon, director of the National Office for Professional Standards of the Catholic Church in New Zealand, has been attending a meeting in Rome of The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. He was one of three people to speak when Pope Francis met with the commission face-to-face for the first time. Together Read more
The Catholic Church in Fiji has in place a policy on misconduct and sexual abuse, says Roman Catholic Church Archbishop of Suva Peter Loy Chong. He stated this during an interview by this newspaper after being questioned on few cases where Catholic priests were reported to have molested women in the past. Continue reading
The National Director for the Office for Professional Standards for the Catholic Church in New Zealand, Bill Kilgallon, has made known the number of sexual abuse claims that have been made in the four years 2010 – 2014. There have been 58 child-sex abuse complaints accepted. 26 have been proven and 24 are still under Read more
New Zealand’s Catholic Church has been training Pacific Islands church personnel on safeguarding children and dealing with abuse. National Office for Professional Standards director Bill Kilgallon and the Congregation for the Doctine of the Faith’s promoter of justice Msgr Robert Oliver visited American Samoa in July. Accompanied by clinical psychologist Carolyn Cavana, they were there Read more
Mr Bill Kilgallon, the executive officer of the New Zealand Catholic Church’s National Office for Professional Standards, says he expects more people will come forward with allegations as Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse gets under way. He says that since June the church has received five new claims of abuse Read more
Archbishop John Dew has announced that Mr Bill Kilgallon is to replace Mr John Jamieson, who retires in February, as National Director for the Office for Professional Standards, the office which is tasked with dealing with complaints of abuse against clergy or religious. “While the complaints and reviews which are currently being processed are all Read more