An Australian jury on Thursday found a former Catholic bishop guilty of sexually abusing two men, according to media reports.

The former bishop, Christopher Alan Saunders, 76, was found guilty of 13 sex offenses, including one count of sexual penetration without consent and 12 charges of indecent assault, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. He was acquitted of six other charges. Mr. Saunders, who was the bishop of the diocese of Broome, had pleaded not guilty to the charges, local media reported.

The current bishop of Broome, Tim Norton, released a statement after the verdict acknowledging “the courage of victims, survivors and other witnesses who came forward to express their truth.”

“We are deeply sorry for the hurt they have experienced. We are sorry for the shame they have endured,” Bishop Norton said.

The offenses date back to 2008, WA Today, an Australian online publication, said.

During the trial, the District Court of Western Australia heard that Mr. Saunders held gatherings where he gave alcohol and food to men, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. The network also said he touched young men with his feet and, in one case, engaged in oral sex without consent. The victims were young Indigenous men.

The Broome diocese spans the Kimberley region, an area larger than France in the far north of the state of Western Australia. It has a population of about 50,000, according to the diocese’s website.

Mr. Saunders, who was arrested in 2024, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21.

The verdict makes Mr. Saunders one of the most senior Catholic clerics in Australia to have been convicted of sexual abuse committed while serving in his post, WA Today said.

A higher-ranking Catholic cleric, Cardinal George Pell, who died in 2023, was convicted in 2018 of child sexual abuse, but Australia’s highest court later overturned the conviction.

A national inquiry into child sex abuse in 2017 found that more than 4,000 people had been abused as children in religious institutions, of whom 61.8 percent said the abuse had occurred in Catholic institutions.

Bishop Norton said in his statement on Thursday that he would visit parts of the Broome diocese in the coming months to speak with members of the community.

Mr. Saunders was consecrated as the second bishop of the diocese in 1996, but he stepped aside in 2020, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported. He formally resigned from the position in 2021.