A Maltese has quit the priesthood in Victoria, Australia, claiming the Victorian Archdiocese is continuing to hide child abuse cases.
Victor Buhagiar, a priest for 25 years, told Today Tonight that it had become impossible to continue after he found out the Church was deleting records relating to child sexual abuse.
During one meeting, he said, he heard the Archbishop telling the secretary to turn off the recorder.
"As soon as the recording was turned off, the Archbishop started talking about the sex abuse situation.
"I suspect the recorder was turned off to minimise the possibility of investigators finding evidence that can be useful to the inquiry, or to the Royal Commission; to create like a black hole, an empty space that when the investigators try to see how the situation evolved during the last 10 years or so, they seem to find nothing."
Buhagiar's concerns about the Church's 'no names' policy deepened when he called the Victorian Archdiocese to report a man in his parish who'd volunteered but failed the ‘working with children’ check.
He wanted an alert sent to other parishes, to warn them of the potentially dangerous man in their midst but Buhagiar's request was refused.
"The secretary told me we cannot do that because we have a policy of no names. If I don't put the name of the person, how are the other priests going to know who I'm talking about?" Buhagiar said.