Church records confirm the existence of about 20 alleged victims of the former priest, Denis McAlinden, and contain anecdotal evidence that there may have been up to 60 more.
The late John Toohey, then bishop of Maitland, in the NSW Hunter Valley, spoke to McAlinden about the allegations in 1956, but it is understood the diocese did not officially contact the police until 2003.
Other alleged victims -- from Western Australia, South Australia and NSW -- have recently contacted detectives investigating what police describe as "alleged cover-ups by current and former serving senior members of the Catholic Church" relating to McAlinden.
These include "Maggie", who told police she was abused by McAlinden as a nine or 10-year-old, when he was parish priest in a small Pilbara town.
Maggie, who asked not to be named, said she was abused in 1982: twice in the town church and once when McAlinden took a group of schoolgirls on a trip to the beach. "He pulled me in close, and put his hands up . . . and digitally intruded," she said. "It's been an influence over my entire life.
"I've been married and divorced twice, involved in drugs. All sorts of ups and downs. You're never really living a true life. You've always got this feeling in the back of your head that someone's going to betray you."
Maggie reported her alleged abuse to WA Police in 1992.
McAlinden was charged and found not guilty of abusing both her and another young girl.
Despite this, Maggie remains insistent the abuse happened and her account is being taken seriously by NSW Police. Their investigation, operating as Strike Force Lantle, has relatively narrow terms of inquiry, which make it impossible to directly follow up her claims.
With the state opposition saying this week that it would back a special commission of inquiry into child abuse, however, Maggie's details remain on file in case any such inquiry should take place.
Bill Wright, the Bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, where McAlinden had spent much of his career as a priest, recently said he was "broadly supportive of public inquiries into these matters" and the diocese would co-operate with any official investigation.
In 1995, church officials held an internal inquiry into McAlinden's alleged abuse and subsequently began the process of removing him from the priesthood, although he remained a priest until at least 1998.
Strike Force Lantle detectives have interviewed two senior church officials involved in this process: the former bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Michael Malone and Brian Lucas, the general secretary of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
A third senior official, Archbishop of Adelaide, Philip Wilson, declined to be interviewed by police.
It is not suggested any of the three knew that church records contained evidence of such a large number of alleged victims.
None of the three was able to comment yesterday
Strike Force Lantle is preparing a brief of evidence for the state's Director of Public Prosecutions.
McAlinden died in 2005.