Australian Senator to name alegged sex abuse preist.

The back story is that an Archbishop in Australia, John Hepworth, has accused three Catholic preists of sex abuse whilst he was a young man in the church. Two of them have since passed away, but there is an 'investigation' into the third preist. The senator Nick Xenophon, has said he will stand up in parliament and name the preist if the church do not stand him down during investigations. The church have refused to susspend him due to 'the complex and sensitive issues related to the matter'.

Link

Archbishop Hepworth has alleged that he was raped repeatedly for a 12-year period by two priests, and a fellow seminary student, who was later ordained, at St Francis Xavier Seminary.

More details on the back story are here

AND EVEN AS I TYPE!!!!! (Literally - I was just looking for another link and this poped up!)

This is announced

Independent senator Nick Xenophon has used parliamentary privilege to name a priest accused of raping Adelaide-based Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth about 50 years ago.

Nice work!

reply to post by Shamatt


good work Nick Xenophon, he is the best polly in australia by far
lets hope we see more of this from now on
it needs to stop

While he's at it he should name the South Australian politician who has been put up on child porn charges.
But good on Nick, he fights for the issues that the constituants are concerned about, unlike all the other career politicians who are just concerned about looking after their jobs.

Originally posted by jamesthegreat
While he's at it he should name the South Australian politician who has been put up on child porn charges.
But good on Nick, he fights for the issues that the constituants are concerned about, unlike all the other career politicians who are just concerned about looking after their jobs.

no kidding probably mr rannnnn
while he is good i know for a fact he actually didnt sign on a vote that would see australia have its own human rights constitution.
but yeah its a calling for him not a career.

Originally posted by jamesthegreat
While he's at it he should name the South Australian politician who has been put up on child porn charges.
But good on Nick, he fights for the issues that the constituants are concerned about, unlike all the other career politicians who are just concerned about looking after their jobs.

That guy was outed the day after the story broke I think - MP Bernard Finnigan charged over alleged possession of kiddie porn

I like this Xenophon dude. Seems to have his ear to the ground, rather than his nose up the parties .......... I guess you can do that when you are an independant though. We should have more of them. I hope the church will now do something about this.

I bet the Catholics are rubbing their hands together, thankfull that the attention has been diverted for a moment lol!

Originally posted by Shamatt

That guy was outed the day after the story broke I think - MP Bernard Finnigan charged over alleged possession of kiddie porn

I like this Xenophon dude. Seems to have his ear to the ground, rather than his nose up the parties .......... I guess you can do that when you are an independant though. We should have more of them. I hope the church will now do something about this.

I bet the Catholics are rubbing their hands together, thankfull that the attention has been diverted for a moment lol!

I didn't think that they named him yet. I know he resigned from his position a couple of days before the accusations were made against a sitting MP, but I did not know it was him.
But thinking about it, he looks lke the type of person that would do that type of thing. Quite unfortunate that he had to grow up in my region. I feel sorry for his parents, he grew up in a small community, where everyone knows everybody.

reply to post by Shamatt


I'm glad he did, there are far too many of these kinds of people in the church. If the chruch won't name them someone else should. Unless the chruch takes strong positive action to clean these people out of their organsiatons, I beleive its open for us to conclude that the church condones these practices in which case it makes the church just a bunch of kid f*****s

Funny how the media is very quick to name small time people accused of serious crimes and money grubbing activities of one sort or another but the big powerful media, 70% of which in Australia is owned by one person, stays well away from naming pedophiles in the church. Strange that.

Martin Bryant got named and his photo plastered all over the media with the assent of the police who knew this was agsint the law but it seems there is not one shred of eveidence connecting him to the crime. Why does the media not behave in the same way towards priets accused of child molestation??