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Vatican launches investigation into Australian bishop accused of child sex abuse  

September 19, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. / Credit: Shutterstock

CNA Staff, Sep 19, 2023 / 16:50 pm (CNA).

The Holy See is investigating a former Australian bishop after receiving a 200-page report alleging the bishop sexually assaulted four indigenous youths and may have used hundreds of thousands of dollars in Church and charity funds in attempts to groom 67 others.

Former bishop Christopher Saunders of the Diocese of Broome, who is the subject of the investigation, stepped down from his role in 2020 amid sexual abuse allegations. The Vatican, which commissioned the independent report, received the findings in April but did not release them to the public. The report was leaked to 7NEWS in Australia, which published excerpts of the findings.

According to the excerpts, the report found that “the bishop has been variously described by witnesses as … a sexual predator that seeks to prey upon vulnerable Aboriginal men and boys” and “during the investigation, four victims of sexual (delictual) acts were identified.”

The report added that 67 “additional Aboriginal boys and men were also identified as persons that may have been subjected to delictual acts or grooming behaviors by Bishop Saunders.” 

According to 7NEWS, the report found that allegations against Saunders date back to just shortly after he was ordained a priest in Sydney, about 50 years ago, and that he developed a method of grooming Indigenous males by giving gifts of alcohol, cash, phones, phone credit, hotels, and air and bus travel.

The report found, according to 7NEWS, that Saunders spent about $4,000 per month on alcohol for the youths. The report discovered that he had five bank accounts, which held about $3 million at one point and purchased a $70,000 boat and several cars. 

Police launched an investigation into Saunders in 2018 after a man came forward with sexual abuse allegations, but after a two-year investigation, the prosecutors did not find enough evidence against the bishop and declined to bring charges. The Holy See’s investigation began in 2022 and is being led by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The dicastery’s investigation is still ongoing. 

The president of the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Archbishop Timothy Costelloe of Perth, said in a statement that the Holy See will make a determination “in due time” and “it is hoped that this will not be unduly delayed.” He said the Church’s investigation could not begin until the police finished its inquiry into the allegations.

“We will respect the enduring confidential nature of this process by not commenting on specific allegations that have been raised,” Costelloe said. “Bishop Saunders, who has maintained his innocence, is able to respond to the report by communicating directly with the Holy See.”

Costelloe added that the allegations “are very serious and deeply distressing, especially for those making the allegations” and that “it is right and proper for them to be thoroughly investigated.” 

“After what has been a long and painful process for so many, it is important that a just and authoritative finding be made,” Costelloe said. “Only then can the process of rebuilding the Church community in Broome, begun under the leadership of Bishop Michael Morrissey, the apostolic administrator of the diocese, continue to make progress and bring healing.”

The Holy See’s investigation was “entrusted to an experienced and independent specialist investigations organization,” according to Costelloe. It was overseen by Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge.

There were 102 witnesses identified in the report, 30 of whom were formally interviewed, according to 7NEWS. 

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Catholics from mainland China and across Asia in Mongolia for Mass with Pope Francis

September 3, 2023 Catholic News Agency 1
Pope Francis presides over the first-ever papal Mass on Mongolian soil in Ulaanbaatar’s Steppe Arena on Sept. 3, 2023. / Andrea Gagliarducci/EWTN

Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, Sep 3, 2023 / 03:30 am (CNA).

Catholics from across Asia traveled to Mongolia to attend the country’s first-ever papal Mass with Pope Francis on Sunday.

“For people in Asia … we do not have a lot of opportunities to meet the pope personally, so for many of us, for most of us, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and it is like a dream come true for many many Asians,” Hee Jung Choi from Seoul told CNA at the Mass on Sept. 3.

While papal Masses on the pope’s other international trips can draw hundreds of thousands of people, the Mass in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar only had an estimated 2,500 in attendance — presenting a rare opportunity to personally meet the pope for many attendees.

“We came to Mongolia to ask the pope to visit Vietnam,” Father Huynh The Vinh of the Vietnamese diocese of Phu Cuong said.

Huynh is one of 90 Vietnamese Catholics who made the journey to Mongolia to see the pope, along with seven bishops from the country.

Catholics from South Korea, Vietnam, the Philippines, Russia, China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Azerbaijan attended the Mass in the sports arena, according to the Vatican. The visiting Catholics nearly doubled Mongolia’s small Catholic population of 1,450 people.

Among the crowd were Catholics from mainland China, who risked retribution from their government to attend the Mass with the pope. At the end of the Mass, Pope Francis called Cardinal-elect Stephen Chow, the bishop of Hong Kong, and Cardinal John Tong Hon, Hong Kong’s bishop emeritus, to his side as he shared a special message to Chinese Catholics.

Pope Francis added that he wanted to “send a warm greeting to the noble Chinese people.”

“I ask Chinese Catholics to be good Christians and good citizens,” he said.

Pope Francis arrived in the Steppe Arena to enthusiastic cheers of “Viva Papa!” as he made his way around the arena in a small golf cart, stopping to kiss babies and shake hands.

In his homily, reflected on the words of Psalm 63, “my soul thirsts for you,” — words that he said accompany “our journey through life, amid all the deserts we are called to traverse.”

Pope Francis said that the words of the psalmist, who laments the thirst of his soul as if in a “dry and weary land,” have “particular resonance in a land like Mongolia: immense, rich in history and culture, yet also marked by the aridity of the steppes and the desert.”

The Gobi Desert, the sixth largest in the world, stretches across the bottom third of Mongolia. It has an extremely harsh climate with temperatures that can range from 113°F to -40°F.

Speaking in a place steeped in a nomadic tradition, Pope Francis said: “All of us are ‘God’s nomads, pilgrims in search of happiness, wayfarers thirsting for love. The desert of which the Psalmist speaks, then, is our life.”

“Many of you know both the satisfaction and the fatigue of journeying, which evokes a fundamental aspect of biblical spirituality represented by Abraham and, in a broader sense, by the people of Israel and indeed every disciple of the Lord,” the pope said.

Over the last half-century, as many as one-third of Mongolia’s people have left the countryside, where they lived as nomadic herders, to live in the capital Ulaanbaatar. With around 3.3 million people, Mongolia remains one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world.

In a country so familiar with the hardships of long journeys, the pope told the crowd that the Christian faith is “the answer to our thirst.”

“We thirst for love, for only love can truly satisfy us, bring us fulfillment, inspire inner assurance, and allow us to savor the beauty of life,” he said.

“Dear brothers and sisters, the Christian faith is the answer to this thirst; it takes it seriously, without dismissing it or trying to replace it with tranquilizers or surrogates. For in this thirst lies the great mystery of our humanity: it opens our hearts to the living God, the God of love, who comes to meet us and to make us his children, brothers and sisters to one another.”

Quoting Saint Augustine’s “On the Psalms,” Pope Francis said: “‘Lest we grow faint in this desert, God refreshes us with the dew of his word… True, he makes us feel thirst, but then comes to satisfy that thirst… God has been merciful to us; he has opened for us a highway in the desert: our Lord Jesus Christ.”

“‘He has offered us a source of consolation in that desert: the preachers of his word. He has offered us water in that desert, by filling those preachers with the Holy Spirit, so as to create, in them, a fount of water springing up to life everlasting.’”

Catholics prayed in Chinese and Russian during the prayers of the faithful after the pope’s homily. Cardinal Giorgio Marengo, the apostolic prefect of Ulaanbaatar and the world’s youngest cardinal, served as the main celebrant of the Mass.

“At the heart of Christianity is an amazing and extraordinary message. If you lose your life, if you make it a generous offering, if you risk it by choosing to love, if you make it a free gift for others, then it will return to you in abundance, and you will be overwhelmed by endless joy, peace of heart, and inner strength and support,” Pope Francis said.

“[W]hen we lose our lives for the sake of the Gospel, the Lord gives them back to us abundantly, in the fullness of love and joy for all eternity,” he said.

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