Victoria police are investigating the third suspicious church fire in Melbourne within the past week.
Two separate fires broke out at St Mary’s church in Dandenong at around 2am on Wednesday, causing extensive damage to the 151-year-old church before fire crews were able to extinguish the flames.
The church is linked to Kevin O’Donnell, a priest who has been accused of a number of sexual assaults on children. O’Donnell, who is now dead, was never charged over the alleged offenses.
Early on Monday morning, another suspicious fire destroyed St James church in Brighton, with St Mary’s church in St Kilda suffering damage on the same day due to suspected arson.
Priest Ronald Pickering attended both of the churches in the 1970s and 1980s. Pickering, who died in 2012, fled to the UK in 1993 and did not face prosecution over a number of sexual abuse offenses stretching back to 1960.
Opinion.
On the eve of Easter it appears somebody is targeting the Catholic Church in Victoria. Cynics among us would say that every Melbourne Catholic church has been involved in paedophilia at some time during the 20th century. A month ago we stated: 'We hope the pedophiles worry about what could happen to them because when the justice system fails then people are known to take justice into their own hands'. It's obvious to many people we are witnessing not only hypocrisy on the question of gay marriage from an institution that harbored child abusers over decades, but a system that is sympathetic to these criminals from the Prime Minister on down the line.
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