Bishop Saunders stood aside as Bishop of Broome in March 2020 after media reports that Western Australia Police had begun an investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct.
The Holy See has now initiated a canonical investigation.
Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe SDB made history this week when he was elected the new President of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference.
He is the first president of the Bishops Conference from Western Australia and, as a priest of the Salesians of Don Bosco, the first member of a religious order to be elected president.
Australian Catholic Bishops Conference President and Brisbane Archbishop Coleridge drew on the Gospel for Sunday’s First Assembly Closing Mass to see how the protagonist had similarities with the Council’s members.