Pope Francis appointed Timothy Norton (66) as the new bishop on Monday, as announced by the Vatican.
The religious from the Steyler Missionaries was previously auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Brisbane and succeeds Christopher Saunders (74), who stepped down from his position in August 2021.
Saunders was charged with 19 sexual offences in February: He is accused of 14 counts of sexual assault and two counts of rape. He is also alleged to have had "indecent contact with minors" between the ages of 16 and 18 in three cases.
According to court documents, the offences took place between 2008 and 2014.
According to the police, the investigation against the former head of the diocese is still ongoing; two further allegations from 2016 were added in April. So far, Saunders has denied any wrongdoing.
Investigations by the Vatican
The Vatican had launched its own investigation into the case, with an investigation report from September 2023 accusing the emeritus bishop of "very serious" misconduct.
The 200-page report, which was leaked to Australian media, concluded that Saunders had probably sexually abused four indigenous young people during his more than half a century as a priest in Broome and possibly committed offences against 67 others.
The sparsely populated diocese in Western Australia covers 773,000 square kilometres and is therefore more than twice the size of Germany.
10,000 of the approximately 50,000 inhabitants are Catholics.
The Kimberley region within the diocese has one of the largest Aboriginal populations.
Saunders, who led the coastal diocese for more than 20 years, had made a name for himself as a campaigner for the rights of the Aboriginals.