The former bishop of Australia’s Broome diocese was sentenced Wednesday to six years and six months in prison for sexually abusing two young Aboriginal men.
Bishop Christopher Saunders, who led the diocese from 1996 until his resignation in 2021, was sentenced Oct. 7 at the District Court of Western Australia.
The 76-year-old will serve at least four years and six months, backdated to Aug. 12, 2026, the date he was convicted and taken into custody. He will become eligible for parole in February 2031, when he will be 81 years old.
Following a three-week trial, a jury found Saunders guilty on 12 counts of indecent assault and one count of sexual penetration, arising from incidents between 2008 and 2019. He was found 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.
Bishop Tim Norton, S.V.D., who has led the Broome diocese since 2024, said Oct. 7 that the victims, survivors, and other witnesses had shown “extraordinary resilience and inner strength” during the years-long process that ended with Saunders’ conviction and sentencing.
“We remain deeply sorry for the pain, hurt and loss you experienced. We are sorry for the shame you endured. We are sorry that it took so long for your voices to be heard and for your experiences to be acknowledged,” Norton wrote.
He added: “We understand that the public sentencing of Christopher Saunders, in whom many placed their trust, may trigger reactions of anger, loss, confusion, and grief across our diocese.”
“We also acknowledge that the sentence cannot heal the damage done. As a diocese, we have a responsibility to consult with local people about rituals and processes that may begin to address in contextual ways some of these raw feelings.”
Handing down the sentence, District Court Judge Martin Flynn said that Saunders had “disregarded the dignity” of the two victims.
The judge read out a statement by one of the victims, who said the bishop had treated him like a “toy.”
“My head is pounding now, I am in so much pain, I have too much running through my head for what he did to me,” the victim said.
Saunders reportedly did not react as the sentence was read out.
Australian bishops’ conference president Archbishop Timothy Costelloe, S.D.B., said: “The sentence and the remarks made by His Honor Judge Flynn recognize the gravity and serious nature of the offences, as well as the profound impact on the victims and survivors of these crimes.”
He added: “To each victim and survivor who courageously revealed what they had endured, we want to say this: We are sorry for the pain and suffering that was inflicted on you. We are sorry that your trust was so directly and profoundly betrayed by a leader of the Church.”
“The journey of the Church must also continue. The crimes for which the former bishop of Broome has been sentenced today are a shocking and shameful reminder of this.”
The sentencing follows years of controversy surrounding Saunders, who was ordained a priest of the Broome diocese in 1976 and served as its bishop for more than 25 years.
Saunders stepped aside from governing the diocese in 2020 after allegations that he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in Church funds on gifts and other benefits for vulnerable Aboriginal young people, including cash, phones, alcohol, and travel.
He resigned in 2021, at the age of 71, citing ill health, while also facing allegations of sexual misconduct and grooming of young Aboriginal men.
An initial police investigation into the allegations was closed in 2021 due to insufficient evidence. The following year, the Vatican ordered a canonical probe into Saunders’ conduct, the first in Australia under the norms of Pope Francis’ 2019 document Vos estis lux mundi.
The Vatican-ordered inquiry resulted in a 200-page report that Church authorities gave to police, prompting a new criminal investigation that ultimately led to a raid and Saunders’ arrest in 2024.
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.”
The Church’s canonical disciplinary process was suspended pending the outcome of the criminal proceedings and is now expected to resume.
During the trial, prosecutor Adam Ebell told the court that Saunders was sexually attracted to Aboriginal males and invited them to “alcohol-fueled” parties at Church properties across Western Australia’s Kimberley region.
The prosecutor said the dress code at the parties was “shirts off” and there was a “seemingly endless supply of alcohol and cigarettes,” bought using Church funds.
The prosecutor alleged that Saunders used boxing and wrestling as a “subterfuge” to engage in physical contact with the young men.
The bishop chose not to give evidence in his defense at the trial. But jurors were shown police interview recordings in which Saunders offered denials, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.
The Broome diocese covers the Kimberley and Pilbara regions of the sparsely populated state of Western Australia, serving around 12,000 Catholics. The diocese has eight parishes stretched over an area larger than the U.S. state of Texas.
Dang... how does stuff like this happen? Surely someone would whistleblow when Church funds are used for heinous things like that.
We need to step up the financial controls in dioceses.