The Australian Catholic Church plans to contact child abuse investigators in Ireland to find out if any clerical abusers in Ireland had connections to ministries in Australia.The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, chaired by Judge Sean Ryan, published its report last year outlining the extensive sexual and physical abuse of children over a 60-year period by priests, nuns and lay staff within the Irish Catholic Church.
Its publication has led to calls for a royal commission in Australia, amid concerns that there was a significant contingent of Irish clergy living and working in Australia.
The Australian Church has now said that it will seek information from the Irish commission, although details of the exact information being sought are not known. The Archdiocese of Sydney did not respond to queries on the issue from The Sunday Business Post.
Cardinal George Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney and head of the Catholic Church in Australia, has said that he believes it is unlikely that any ‘‘problem priests’’ were sent from Ireland to Australia.
While Pell was strongly tipped to head an apostolic visitation to Ireland, announced by the Pope last March, he has played down those suggestions.
There were strong similarities between the findings of the Irish commission and those of a senate committee in Australia in 2001 into the abuse of children that had been sent from Britain to institutions in Australia.
Almost two-thirds of the sexual assault allegations that were received by the Australian committee were against Christian Brothers institutions.
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