The Vatican has greeted Thursday's conviction of former Broome bishop Christopher Saunders by ordering a new inquiry into why its previous inquiries remain shrink-wrapped, a pastoral innovation last considered daring during the reign of Pius IX.
A jury at the West Australian district court found Saunders guilty of 13 offences and acquitted him of six others. Rome issued a statement of profound shock that aides later admitted had been kept in a drawer marked "for recurring use" and photocopied whenever a senior cleric met a jury.
We shall determine whether this is a fresh scandal or merely the interval.
"The reports will be rebound in new leather so the Church may begin again with dignity," said Monsignor Alaric Pymm of the Pontifical Council for Recurring Themes. History, as ever, declines to take notes.
