In the Pacific, a ‘dumping ground’ for priests accused or convicted of abuse

Suva, Fiji: Pope Francis was expected to be welcomed by children bearing flowers, a 21-gun salute and a candlelight vigil after landing in Papua New Guinea on Friday. It would be the first papal visit in three decades to the Pacific islands, a deeply Christian region — but one that has played a little-known role in the clergy abuse scandal that has stained the Roman Catholic Church.

Over several decades, at least 10 priests and missionaries moved to Papua New Guinea after they had allegedly sexually abused children, or had been found to do so, in the West, according to court records, government inquiries, survivor testimonies, news media reports and comments by church officials.

These men were part of a larger pattern: At least 34 priests and missionaries left New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States for Pacific island countries such as Fiji, Kiribati and Samoa under similar circumstances. In at least 13 cases, their superiors knew that these men had been accused or convicted of abuse before they transferred to the Pacific, according to church records and survivor accounts, shielding them from scrutiny.

It has been widely documented that the church has protected scores of priests from authorities by shuffling them to other places, sometimes in other countries. But what sets these cases apart is the remoteness of the islands the men ended up in, making it harder for authorities to pursue them. The relocations also gave the men access to vulnerable communities where priests were considered beyond reproach.

Notably, at least three of these men, according to government inquiries and news media reports, went on to abuse new victims in the Pacific.

Most moved to or served in 15 countries and territories in the region in the 1990s, but one still serves as an itinerant priest in Guam, an American territory, and another has returned to New Zealand, where he has been cleared by the church to return to ministry. Both deny the allegations of abuse. Christopher Longhurst, a New Zealand-based spokesperson for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a support group, said the organization plans to press the pope on the movement of the priests to the Pacific while he is in Papua New Guinea.

The pope’s next stop will be East Timor. In 2022, the Vatican punished Bishop Carlos Ximenes Belo, a hero of the nation’s independence movement, over allegations that he had raped and abused teenage boys decades ago in East Timor.

Francis has made a string of apologies for the church’s global sex abuse scandal. He has ordered clergy to report allegations of sexual abuse and cover-ups and issued a broad apology to all Catholics. But the remedies he has offered, survivors and critics say, fall well short of his words.

Michelle Mulvihill, a former nun and adviser to the Australian Catholic Church, has long accused Catholic organizations of using the Pacific islands as a “dumping ground” for abusive priests.

“We’re moving pedophiles and pederasts into the poorest countries in the world,” Mulvihill said after being told of The New York Times’ findings. The church “used them to discard those people who they didn’t want to confront.”

Allegations or convictions have previously been documented for all the priests and missionaries in question, but in more than a dozen cases, this is the first time their subsequent move to the Pacific has been reported. It is also the first time a widespread pattern of such movement to the Pacific islands has been identified.

‘There’s No Vetting’

In Fiji, one of the first public accusations of abuse against a priest or missionary was made in 2022. That was the case of Felix Fremlin, who said he was abused as a child by New Zealand missionaries working in Fiji. His father did not believe his accusations and, instead, beat him.

“If you say something against the church, it’s like saying something against God,” said Fremlin, who is now estranged from many family members and suffers from depression. Correspondence between his lawyer and Catholic officials shows that Fremlin reached a monetary settlement with the church.

Peter Loy Chong, the archbishop of Suva, the capital of Fiji, said he had no records of abusive priests being moved to his archdiocese.

But such cases were possible, Mulvihill said, because of the way the church is organized. Many of the accused priests and brothers belonged to Catholic religious orders that are supposed to be supervised by their own superiors, and not by diocesan bishops and archbishops.

Others were priests who belonged to Catholic dioceses and therefore required individual approval from local bishops before moving. But often, Mulvihill said, bishops were “probably not asking questions” when colleagues requested transfers for such men. “There’s no vetting,” she said. “It’s become normalized.”

Each order and diocese ultimately reports to the Vatican. Matteo Bruni, the Vatican’s spokesperson, said he had no knowledge of the cases and said it would be inappropriate to comment about them because he did not know the specifics of each case. He emphasized Francis’ “commitment to ensure abuses are never tolerated,” and he referred the Times to the individual dioceses and orders.

The Times sought comment from the orders or dioceses of all 34 men. Many did not respond, and some declined to comment. Most that did answer said they had no records whatsoever of the men or that they received reports of abuse only after the men returned from overseas.

Twenty-two of these priests and missionaries were convicted of abuse, admitted to allegations or were considered credibly accused by their religious orders or dioceses. Four others died before the claims against them were made public.

Three of the 34 men, who denied allegations of abuse, were investigated by police but were not brought to trial because of health or mental fitness issues. Prosecutors charged three others who also denied accusations of abuse, but the first man died before trial, the second man’s case was stayed by a judge for procedural reasons and the third man’s case was stayed by a judge for reasons that are not clear. That priest’s diocese did not respond to questions. The remaining two priests, the ones now in Guam and New Zealand, deny the claims of abuse and have not faced charges from prosecutors.

Brother Gerard Brady, the Oceania head of one order, the Christian Brothers, apologized and said, “We acknowledge that some past responses fell well short of the processes and standards which are in place today to protect children.”

A Stint at the Vatican

In Papua New Guinea and East Timor, Francis is visiting two overwhelmingly Christian countries. Catholicism is the biggest denomination in Papua New Guinea and accounts for more than one-fourth of the population. The faith is followed by 98% of the people in East Timor.

Christianity spread in the Pacific islands during the 18th and 19th centuries through a strong partnership between missionaries and local leaders. Today, many countries in the region have intensely religious cultures where more than 95% of people identify as Christian.

The Rev. Julian Fox taught in Catholic schools around Melbourne, in his native Australia, for decades after he was ordained. He rose to be the Australian head of his order, the Salesians of Don Bosco. But in 1999, according to documents released by an independent inquiry established by the Australian government, he moved to the small Pacific island nation of Fiji. About the same time, according to news media reports, a former student accused the priest of rape.

Subsequent reports in the news media and from the Salesians diverge on whether Fox left Australia before the allegation was made or because of it. But both show that church leaders did not require him to return to Australia, even as other accusations of abuse by Fox were reported to them. He was within his legal rights to stay in Fiji, and that kept him out of the reach of Australian authorities. After spending several years in Fiji, he took an assignment at the Vatican.

According to media reports, Fox returned home a decade after the initial accusation, which the church settled privately through a broad settlement program called Towards Healing. He then faced allegations in court and was convicted in 2015 for abusing five children, some of whom he beat and violated with a pool cue, according to Australian media reports.

The Salesians of Don Bosco in Melbourne did not respond to repeated requests for comment, and Fox was not reachable for comment. The Dallas Morning News first reported on his case in 2004, alongside two other abusive Salesian priests who moved to the Pacific.

An Admission of Abuse

Frequently, church officials knew priests and missionaries had committed abuse before sending them to the Pacific.

In 1986, a couple went to a priest in Baltimore to talk about Brother William Morgan, an American missionary who had briefly returned from Papua New Guinea, according to a report issued by the office of Maryland’s attorney general years later.

The couple said Morgan had touched their 4-year-old granddaughter with his penis and in the past had abused other children, according to notes taken by the Baltimore priest that were quoted in the Maryland report. A letter by the priest showed that Morgan later admitted that he had “fondled and touched” children several times while he was in Papua New Guinea. Despite his admission, Morgan’s superiors at the Society of the Divine Word, his religious order, sent him back to the island nation for five years.

The Maryland attorney general’s office, which obtained the notes and correspondence, found no record of a report to law enforcement.

The Rev. Adam Oleszczuk, the leader of the Chicago province of the Society of the Divine Word, which includes Baltimore, said he had no records concerning Morgan.

In multiple cases, moving to the Pacific seemed to offer Catholic figures an escape.

In 1971, Brother Rodger Moloney was appointed by the Hospitaller Brothers of St. John of God, a Catholic order, as the leader of Marylands School in Christchurch, New Zealand. His job was to care for children with disabilities. Six years later, one person anonymously reported to the brother’s superior in Australia that Moloney had sexually abused a child, according to a New Zealand government inquiry.

Months later, he was transferred to serve in a pharmacy at the Vatican. He then moved to Papua New Guinea, the inquiry found, where he worked in the 1980s and 1990s, and eventually to Australia.

Moloney was extradited to New Zealand in 2006, convicted of abusing five boys and sentenced to nearly three years in prison, according to court records. He died in 2019. His order did not respond to questions.

In Fiji, Fremlin now coordinates a support network for survivors of clerical abuse, most of whom keep their experiences secret. All “have marriage problems, job problems,” he said. “Some are violent towards women, some have problems with drugs.”

He added: “Overseas, you’ve got specialists. Here in Fiji, we’ve got nobody. The only counseling we get is when we sit and talk with each other.”