The Vatican is considering the findings of a church investigation into “very serious and deeply distressing” child sexual abuse allegations against a former Australian bishop, a church leader said on Tuesday.
Christopher Saunders, now 73, resigned in 2021 as bishop of Broome, an Outback diocese of northwest Australia larger than France but with a population of only 50,000, after police announced that they had dropped a sex crime investigation. He had stood down a yr earlier after media reported the allegations.
The church investigation into Saunders began last yr after the police investigation ended, said Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the church’s most senior national leadership group.
A report of the investigation, overseen by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge, had been sent to the Vatican where the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith was continuing to analyze, Costelloe said.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly often called the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, is the Vatican office that processes cases of clergy abuse of minors, in response to the church’s in-house canon law.
“Bishop Saunders, who has maintained his innocence, is in a position to reply to the report by communicating directly with the Holy See,” Costelloe said in a press release.
“In due time, the Holy See will make its determination. It is hoped that this can not be unduly delayed,” Costelloe added.
Costelloe issued the statement after Australia’s Seven Network television news reported late Monday the contents of the 200-page Vatican report.
The report found Saunders likely sexually assaulted 4 Indigenous youths and potentially groomed one other 67 Indigenous youths and men, Seven reported.
Costelloe declined to comment on specific allegations.
“The allegations against the previous Bishop of Broome, Christopher Saunders, broadcast on Monday evening are very serious and deeply distressing, especially for those making the allegations,” Costelloe said. “It is correct and proper for them to be thoroughly investigated.”
The Western Australia Police Force said that they had requested a replica of the Vatican report.
“If further information involves light, police will investigate,” a police statement said.
Police had conducted two investigations into allegations against Saunders between 2018 and 2020. Prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to put charges, police said.
Saunders is now Australia’s most senior cleric accused of kid abuse in a scandal that has enveloped the church world wide.
Cardinal George Pell was the third highest-ranking cleric within the Vatican when he was convicted in an Australian court in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a Melbourne cathedral in 1996, when Pell was an archbishop.
Pell spent 13 months in prison before the convictions were overturned on appeal. He maintained his innocence until his death in Rome in January.
Saunders began working in Broome as a deacon in 1975 and have become bishop in 1996.
