OPINION: On a recent Monday morning I sat at the press desk in the
Wellington District Court and watched as a former Catholic priest was
sentenced to six years and seven months in prison for historical sex
offences.
Peter Joseph Hercock left the priesthood in the 1980s. He is 72 now, and married with a son. But in the 1970s he was a chaplain and counsellor at Sacred Heart Girls' College in Lower Hutt. The four women who pursued complaints against him were then pupils in their early teens. They were grappling with personal problems or came from troubled home environments – sometimes both.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/80039052/the-catholic-church-needs-to-move-on-from-archaic-celibacy-rule
Peter Joseph Hercock left the priesthood in the 1980s. He is 72 now, and married with a son. But in the 1970s he was a chaplain and counsellor at Sacred Heart Girls' College in Lower Hutt. The four women who pursued complaints against him were then pupils in their early teens. They were grappling with personal problems or came from troubled home environments – sometimes both.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-standard/opinion/80039052/the-catholic-church-needs-to-move-on-from-archaic-celibacy-rule