When Churches Shield Evil
The denial came despite an earlier letter written to the girls’ parents by Cardinal George Pell, apologising for the priest’s crimes and acknowledging the findings by the church’s investigator that the cleric had raped both the children.
The revelations are contained in a new book by Chrissie Foster, a mother whose daughters were abused by Oakleigh priest Father Kevin O’Donnell in the 1980s and 1990s.
In 1995, O’Donnell became, at 78, the oldest man to be jailed in Victorian history after he admitted abusing 10 boys and two girls over a 31-year period. He is believed to have abused hundreds of children all over Victoria between 1942 and 1992.
Hell On The Way To Heaven, written by Ms Foster in collaboration with ABC journalist Paul Kennedy, chronicles her family’s fight to obtain justice from church authorities on behalf of her daughters, Emma and Katie.