Australian bishop convicted of sexual abuse
Bishop Christopher Saunders was convicted on 13 counts of sex abuse crimes, including against a canonical minor.
Bishop Christopher Saunders was convicted of sexual abuse on Thursday, after jurours took just seven hours to consider the evidence against the former head of the Diocese of Broome, Australia.
The Western Australia district court found Saunders guilty on 12 counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual penetration against young Aboriginal men. The court found the bishop not guilty of six other charges.
Most of the charges reportedly concerned one victim, who was 16 when the sexual contact began and 19 when it ended. In canon law, persons below the age of 18 are considered minors. According to the prosecutor, the young man “felt shame” at what had occurred but “felt like he could not say no.” Saunders was also accused of committing offenses against a 24-year-old man and another man who was in his late teens.
In the course of the three week trial, Bishop Michael Morrissey of the neighboring Diocese of Geraldton appeared in court to give evidence as a witness for the prosecution, answering questions about Saunders’ use of alcohol in supposedly “pastoral” interactions with young men. Morrissey served as apostolic administrator of the Broome diocese following Saunders’ stepping down, until a successor bishop was appointed in 2024.
A police inquiry into allegations against the bishop was closed in 2021, and filed no charges for lack of evidence, but the case was reopened after law enforcement authorities were given a copy of the results of a subsequent internal Church investigation conducted under the norms of Vos estis lux mundi. A second police investigation was opened in 2024, leading to Saunders’ arrest in February of that year.
Previous statements from the Australian Catholic Bishops’ Conference have said that Saunders’ case has been at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome since 2023, and he is charged with “alleged canonical crimes, as defined by Vos estis lux mundi, and alleged breaches of the Church’s Integrity in Ministry protocols.”
Leaked portions of the report produced by the Church’s investigation, which triggered the renewed police action against the bishop last year, identified a pattern of behavior by Saunders consistent with grooming dozens of young men over a period of decades.
According to media reports on the leaked text, one man told Vatican-commissioned investigators that Saunders had employed him to do gardening work at his residence and offered him the use of his shower afterwards. According to the victim, the bishop then climbed into the shower with him.
“I was scared. He was a big fella and I was just a teenager at the time,” he told investigators, and that the bishop subsequently started showering him with gifts of cash, phones, cigarettes and alcohol.
Another man testified that Saunders threw so-called “bunga bunga parties,” to which only male guests were invited and at which he saw the bishop ask attendees to strip, and kiss and grope young guests. “The bishop has been variously described by witnesses as … a sexual predator that seeks to prey upon vulnerable Aboriginal men and boys,” the report said.
Following his resignation and the opening of the Vos estis investigation, Saunders was ordered by the Vatican to reside outside the diocese, a directive he ignored, continuing to live in a Church-owned house in Broome and to exercise considerable influence over diocesan affairs. By December 2023, Saunders was still listed as the “responsible person” for nine Catholic charities in his former diocese, several of which are affiliated with local parishes.
The Broome diocese covers the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of the sparsely populated state of Western Australia, serving around 15,000 Catholics out of a total population of 44,000 people.
Bishop Timothy Norton, S.V.D., was installed as the new Bishop of Broome on Dec. 4, 2024. In a pastoral letter to the local community issued after the verdict, Norton offered his “gratitude” to police and prosecutors “for their commitment to bringing this matter before a jury.”
“Most importantly, our diocese acknowledges the courage of victims, survivors and other witnesses who came forward to express their truth,” said the bishop. “They showed extraordinary resilience and commitment through a long and difficult process. They deserved to be heard with compassion and treated with dignity.”
“We are deeply sorry for the hurt they have experienced. We are sorry for the shame they have endured. We are sorry that it has taken so long for their voices to be heard and for their pain to be acknowledged. We will do all we can to reach out to them for hope and healing,” the bishop said, while pledging to visit local communities around the diocese in the coming months for a time of “grieving, listening, and walking together.”
Saunders will face a sentencing hearing on September 21.