Are Pacific Islands a ‘Dumping Ground’ for Accused Priests?

Pope Francis will be welcomed by children bearing flowers, a 21-gun salute and a candlelight vigil after he lands in Papua New Guinea on Friday. It will be the first papal visit in three decades to the Pacific Islands, a deeply Christian region — but one that has played a little-known role in the clergy abuse scandal that has stained the Roman Catholic Church.

Over several decades, at least 10 priests and missionaries moved to Papua New Guinea after they had allegedly sexually abused children, or had been found to do so, in the West, according to court records, government inquiries, survivor testimonies, news media reports and comments by church officials.

These men were part of a larger pattern: At least 24 other priests and missionaries left New Zealand, Australia, Britain and the United States for Pacific Island countries like Fiji, Kiribati and Samoa under similar circumstances. In at least 13 cases, their superiors knew that these men had been accused or convicted of abuse before they transferred to the Pacific, according to church records and survivor accounts, shielding them from scrutiny.

It has been widely documented that the church has protected scores of priests from the authorities by shuffling them to other places, sometimes in other countries. But what sets these cases apart is the remoteness of the islands the men ended up in, making it harder for the authorities to pursue them. The relocations also gave the men access to vulnerable communities where priests were considered beyond reproach.

Notably, at least three of these men, according to government inquiries and news media reports, went on to abuse new victims in the Pacific.

Most moved to or served in 15 countries and territories in the region in the 1990s, but one still serves as an itinerant priest in Guam, an American territory, and another has returned to New Zealand, where he has been cleared by the church to return to ministry. Both deny the allegations of abuse.