Rev Leo Leunig
Title:
Rev
First Name:
Leo
Middle Names:
St Clair
Preferred Name:
Surname:
Leunig
Order:
Date of Birth:
Place of Birth:
Country of Birth:
Date of Ordination:
Place of Ordination:
Country of Ordination:
Ordination Diocese:
Seminary:
Date of Death:
Place of Death:
Country of Death:
Australia
Date of Burial:
Place of Burial:
Karrakatta, Perth WA
Country of Burial:
Australia
Find A Grave URL:
Biographical Notes
Palmyra, Cottesloe, Scarborough, Quairading, Embleton WA
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Black Collar Crime (to December 2015), Broken Rites Australia, https://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/235, accessed on 25 August 2026:
Fr Leo Leunig, Western Australia
Father Leo St Clair Leunig, then aged 66, of the Perth diocese, Western Australia, was sentenced to six years jail in 1994 after pleading guilty to 46 offences against three young boys between 1965 and 1969; and he was sentenced in 1995 to another 12 months jail for offences against another boy. The offences included indecent touching, oral sex and sodomy. The church authorities had known since 1979 about Leunig's criminal behaviour, but they retained him in the ministry and merely moved him from a one-parish appointment to a multi-parish role as a relieving priest. This meant that he had access to boys in the new parishes where he would be relieving. While he was relieving, Leunig lived for many years at the South Perth presbytery, which is adjacent to a primary school, but the church authorities did not warn the school's principal or parents about him. While Leunig was serving his jail sentence (and also after he was released), the Perth diocese defiantly continued to list him for years in the annual Australian Catholic Directories as a "supplementary" (relieving) priest of the Perth diocese.