THE Vicar-General of the Catholic Church's Maitland-Newcastle diocese has become the second priest to be arrested and charged in the past two days by police investigating child sexual abuse allegations in the Hunter region. Father Tom Brennan, 70, the most senior priest in the diocese after Bishop Michael Malone, was charged with perverting the course of justice by detectives from Strike Force Georgiana at Toronto police station yesterday.
Police said the charge related to a statement he made during a police investigation in 1998 into a complaint against a fellow priest who was a teacher at St Pius X Catholic Boys High School at Adamstown. Brennan was headmaster at the time.
After learning of Brennan's arrest, Bishop Malone went to Toronto police station to lend him support yesterday.
Brennan was granted bail to appear at Newcastle Local Court on September 9.
On Thursday police from Strike Force Georgiana charged 65-year-old Catholic priest John Sidney Denham with 30 child sex-related offences on 18 boys, some of whom were students at St Pius X high school where he was a teacher.
The alleged offences took place in the 1970s and 1980s.
Denham was refused bail and is expected to face the charges in Newcastle Local Court on October 1.
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