Former Roman Catholic Bishop Christopher Saunders has been sentenced by the District Court of Western Australia to six and a half years in prison for sexually abusing two Aboriginal men. Saunders, 76, showed no reaction during Wednesday's sentencing hearing.
In August, the court found Saunders guilty of one count of sexual penetration without consent and 12 counts of indecent assault. The offenses occurred between 2010 and 2019, while he served as bishop of the Broome diocese, a remote diocese in northwestern Australia.
Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, issued a statement apologizing for the pain and loss Saunders caused his victims, saying their trust had been "deeply betrayed by a leader of the Church."
Saunders was ordained a priest in 1976 and began working at remote mission stations in the 1970s. In the 1990s, he was appointed bishop of the Broome diocese by Pope John Paul II.
After the abuse allegations emerged, Saunders was suspended from his duties in 2020, and in August 2021, Pope Francis accepted his resignation. The cleric has always denied the accusations.
In court, information was presented showing the former bishop groomed his victims. He was said to frequently invite young Aboriginal men and boys to a seaside house or a Catholic Church residence, providing alcohol and cigarettes while giving them money and mobile phones. The abuse of the two men was said to have occurred while they were heavily intoxicated.
The Royal Commission and a history of abuse
In 2013, the Australian government established a Royal Commission — a high-level inquiry into child sexual abuse within institutions — following a series of scandals involving the Catholic Church.
In 2017, the commission reported that most abuse occurred within the church, with 7 percent of Catholic priests accused of abusing children in Australia between 1950 and 2010. According to the commission, the allegations were almost never investigated.
The commission found 4,444 cases of child sexual abuse reported to church authorities. In some dioceses, more than 15 percent of priests were perpetrators.
The commission also heard testimony from former Vatican finance chief Cardinal George Pell, who was convicted of sexually abusing boys in a Melbourne choir in the 1990s. Pell — who once served as Pope Francis's anti-corruption czar — was released from prison in 2020 after a court overturned the conviction.
