A special investigation by the ABC's 'compass' has exposed concerns about a lack of transparency and documentation of the children's adoption files, and claims of an historical unofficial 'baby trade'.
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00:00 Brendan Watkins was adopted by a devoted and loving couple, Roy and Bet, in 1961.
00:07 But when he applied for his original birth certificate, he realised his adoption was unorthodox.
00:14 I was hoping that the birth certificate would have both parents' names, it just had my mother's.
00:20 My mother was 27, that was much older than any other stories I'd read about.
00:28 Later, his partner tracked down his biological mother.
00:32 Kate rang and said, "Are you sitting down? I found your mother. She's a nun."
00:38 It took another 30 years and a DNA test to uncover his biological father.
00:44 He was 30 years older and we ruled him out because he was a Catholic priest, so it couldn't be a Catholic priest, could it?
00:54 Incredibly, Brendan's father was a priest, originally based in South Australia.
01:01 Father Vincent Sheel met Brendan's mother when she was at high school in Port Augusta.
01:07 He eventually moved her to his family's house in another state.
01:11 I found that my mother had met my father when she was 14 or 15 and he was 30 years older.
01:19 So he had enormous influence over her. It's a form of spiritual abuse.
01:26 Brendan recently uncovered another secret about his priest father, with the help of his cousin, Bill Sheel.
01:33 Well, Brendan, I brought you to the Wyala Hospital.
01:35 In 1950, a baby was left here at Wyala Hospital, so Father Sheel adopted it into his own family in another state.
01:43 That baby is Terry Sheel, who is now 72 years old.
01:48 So the local doctor rang Vin and said, "I've got a child here."
01:54 Oh, really? I didn't know much about the adoption, how it happened or anything like that.
01:59 Terry was only officially adopted into the priest's own family two years after he was born.
02:06 Why they just keep covering things up and not admitting to what went on, I don't know. I mean, what are they afraid of?
02:17 These are extraordinary facts that seem to show a national undocumented trade in babies being run by the Catholic Church.
02:27 Linda Kelly Lawless is another child of a priest, Father Joseph Kelly.
02:34 My paperwork was never finished and I just seemed to vanish from this hospital.
02:38 All my paperwork has "baby for adoption", false names.
02:42 It's so important for them to get recognition and acknowledgement for the fact that these practices went on.
02:50 Brendan Watkins wants an independent inquiry.
02:54 When you then go to the church, there's no central registry of data.
02:58 And I later learned that each bishop has control over the materials that people are after.
03:04 There clearly needs to be an inquiry, which has the power to compel the truth out of the church.
03:10 This is a matter that I think needs to be closely considered by the Federal Attorney-General and by the Federal Government.
03:17 Compass has yet to receive a response from the Vatican.
03:21 [BLANK_AUDIO]