OMM Redaksiyası
Former Australian Catholic bishop Christopher Saunders was sentenced on Wednesday to six years and six months in prison for sexually abusing two young Indigenous men.
A Western Australia state jury convicted Saunders, 76, in August on 13 of 19 charges relating to abuse between 2008 and 2019 in the remote Broome Diocese. He will be eligible for parole in February 2031.
Saunders was acquitted of six charges involving a third accuser. Four charges concerning a child younger than 13 were dropped on the first day of his three-week trial.
Prosecutors alleged that Saunders lured young Indigenous men to a church-owned house with alcohol and cigarettes purchased with church funds. He led the Broome Diocese from 1996 until resigning in 2021. The diocese covers an area larger than France and has a population of about 50,000; most Catholics in the region are Indigenous.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, said the sentence recognized the seriousness of Saunders’ offenses and their profound impact on victims and survivors.
“To each victim and survivor who courageously revealed what they had endured, we want to say this: We are sorry for the pain and suffering that was inflicted on you,” Costelloe said in a statement. “We are sorry that your trust was so directly and profoundly betrayed by a leader of the Church.”
The Vatican began investigating Saunders in 2022 and provided a report on its findings to Western Australia police the following year. Police charged him in 2024.
Saunders is among the most senior Australian Catholics convicted in the global clergy abuse scandal. Cardinal George Pell and Archbishop Philip Wilson were also convicted in separate cases, but both successfully appealed their convictions.
