The BBC reports he has been charged with rape and a string of historical sexual offences, some against children.

Saunders pleaded not guilty to all charges.

He was granted bail.

Saunders will appear again in the Broome Magistrates Court on 17 June 2024.

The allegations, from 2008, involve incidents in Broome and the remote towns of Kununurra and Kalumburu. The Broome diocese covers 773,000 sq km and serves a population of over 50,000.

Approximately the size of Turkey and equivalently the size of the 37th largest country in the world, the diocese has only 9 parishes, 13 Catholic schools and 1 university.

Saunders resigned as Bishop of Broome in 2021 amidst a failed police investigation and a media storm over the allegations.

The BBC reports that Saunders is well known for socialising, advocacy work and escorting young men on camping and fishing trips.

He is a long-time powerful figure within the local community. There is also a beer named after him.

Church co-operates with civil authorities

A subsequent Vatican investigation into the allegations against Saunders was initiated in 2022, further intensifying scrutiny.

At one point, the West Australian politicians accused the Church of refusing to hand the results of its investigation over to the Police.

However, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference (ACBC) responded firmly, denying these allegations.

It said that a copy of the Vatican report was already in the possession of Western Australia Police Deputy Commissioner Allan Adams.

"The Church and Western Australia Police remain in ongoing and collaborative contact in relation to this matter" ....... "the Church will continue to offer full transparency and cooperation with the WA Police" says a statement from the ACBC.

The results of the Vatican investigation gave West Australian Police grounds to mount a second investigation and ultimately press charges and arrest the former Broome bishop.

The ACBC, through Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, expressed its commitment to a thorough investigation.

Costelloe emphasised the church's full cooperation with police efforts and underscored the gravity of the allegations.

"Allegations against the former Bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders, are very serious and deeply distressing, especially for those making those allegations" said Archbishop Costelloe.

"It is right and proper, and indeed necessary that all such allegations be thoroughly investigated."

The charges against Saunders come in the wake of high-profile cases within the Australian Catholic Church, including Cardinal George Pell's conviction and subsequent acquittal of child sexual abuse charges, and former Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson's overturned conviction for covering up abuse.

Sources

• BBC
• Catholic Weekly
• CathNews (Published September 25, 2023)
• RNS

The definitive rules of Vos Estis, which take effect in May, add to the original document on several specific points:

• Along with complaints of abuse by clerics and religious, the policies are also applied to complaints against lay people who lead "international associations of the faithful" that are recognized by the Vatican. The procedures could be invoked even after these leaders have left office.
• The complaints to be investigated include not only sexual acts with minors, but also those with vulnerable adults. Whereas the earlier version spoke of a "vulnerable person," the new rules speak of "a person who habitually has an imperfect use of reason, or with a vulnerable adult."
• Church investigators are not allowed to require someone who reports abuse to enter into a non-disclosure agreement. In the final version of Vos Estis, this protection is extended not only to people who report that they were abused, but also to witnesses.
• The final version demands "the legitimate protection of the good name and privacy of all persons involved."

The Vos Estis norms require ever diocese to have a "public, stable, and easily accessible" process for the reporting of abuse complaints, and provide for the handling of complaints against bishops as well as priests.

Questions remain

However, the revised norms leave a number of crucial questions unanswered. For instance:

• While lay leaders of Catholic organizations may be subject to canonical penalties, it is not clear how those penalties could be imposed (except insofar as they could be stripped of office), since the Holy See has no direct control over the lives of lay Catholics.
• The definition of a "vulnerable" adult remains open to a broad range of interpretations.
• The order to protect the reputation of everyone involved is obviously in tension with the requirement to conduct public investigations and encourage full disclosure.

To put the problem in more general terms, the definitive version of Vos Estis fails to resolve the basic problem with the original document: the enforcement of the norms remains entirely subject to the discretion of the bishops who interpret them.

Yet it is precisely the discretion of the bishops that has been called into question in recent years; the lay faithful have lost confidence in the willingness of their bishops—and even of the Holy See—to address the abuse scandal forthrightly.

Revelations about clerical abuse and cover-ups continue to emerge, despite promises of full disclosure, despite new policies and procedures.

Nearly three years ago, when the first version of Vos Estis was promulgated, I expressed these misgivings:

However, the new policy does not define the disciplinary action that would be taken against bishops who are found guilty of misconduct (including, under the new rules, the misconduct involved in covering up abuse).

The new policies require an investigation, conducted under the auspices of the Holy See, with a report eventually being made to the relevant Vatican dicastery. But the papal document does not indicate what sort of punishments might be imposed on offenders.

Nor do the new norms address the lack of transparency that has characterized—and could continue to characterize—the Vatican's investigations of episcopal misconduct.

While the papal document requires the Vatican to investigate charges and take appropriate action, there is no provision for any public explanation of the disciplinary action.

On those crucial points, the final version of Vos Estis changes nothing.

• Philip F. Lawler is the editor of Catholic World News (CWN), the first English-language Catholic news service operating on the internet, which he founded in 1995.
• First published by Catholic Culture. Republished with permission.