Australian Bishop Defends Church's Handling of Indigenous Abuse Case

VATICAN CITY -- A senior Australian Catholic bishop has acknowledged an eight-year delay in prosecuting a fellow bishop on charges of sexually abusing young Indigenous men, while defending the church's decision to allow civil authorities to lead the case.

Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Bishops Conference, stated Friday that he hopes the church can soon resume its own internal legal proceedings against former Broome Bishop Christopher Saunders now that Saunders has been sentenced in criminal court. "We still have to respect the integrity of the Australian justice system," Costelloe told The Associated Press on the sidelines of a Vatican conference. "That’s been probably the fundamental reason why it’s stretched out as long as it has."

Saunders, 76, was sentenced on Wednesday to six years and six months in prison after a Western Australia state jury convicted him on 13 of 19 charges of sexual abuse. The abuse allegedly occurred between 2008 and 2019 within his diocese on the country's northwest coast. Prosecutors claimed Saunders lured young Indigenous men to his church-owned residence with alcohol and cigarettes purchased with church funds. Saunders has denied wrongdoing, and it is not yet known if he will appeal.

Church and law enforcement officials became aware of the allegations in 2018. The Vatican mandated Saunders' retirement in 2021, four years before his scheduled age, due to the allegations. However, the Australian police investigation was twice halted due to insufficient evidence. The Vatican typically defers to ongoing criminal investigations before initiating canonical trials to avoid interference, a practice that has become particularly sensitive in Australia given the church's history of abuse and cover-ups.

Costelloe expressed understanding for potential public cynicism regarding the church's response, stating, "It hasn’t been held up in a kind of an obstructionist way. We’ve had no choice but to allow the police to act independently and without interference."

The Vatican launched its own investigation into Saunders in 2022, submitting a 200-page report of its findings to the Western Australia Police Force the following year. This led to the reopening of the criminal investigation and Saunders' eventual charging in 2024.

While the specifics of the Vatican's report were not officially released, Australian media reported that Saunders likely sexually assaulted four Indigenous youths and potentially groomed an additional 67 Indigenous youths and men.

"I think people who are ready to think this through understand that in order to safeguard the integrity of the process and make sure that the church didn’t or wasn’t seen to be compromising the integrity of that process, we needed to step back," Costelloe said. "So I’m very conscious of how long it’s taken, how distressing it’s been, but I believe that in this particularly complex case, this was the right approach to take."

Costelloe denied that the delay was influenced by the fact that the original allegations involved individuals over the age of 18 when the abuse allegedly occurred. Historically, the Vatican has sometimes overlooked abuse allegations involving adults, particularly when the accused clergy members were bishops.