By Reid Sexton
The Age
December 5, 2011
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/rally-presses-case-for-inquiry-on-priests-abuse-20111204-1odjv.html
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| Solemn protesters at the Spring Street rally. Photo: Angela Wylie |
PRESSURE is mounting on the Baillieu government to launch an inquiry into child sex abuse by Victorian Catholic priests after a demonstration on the steps of Parliament yesterday.
The crowd of about 100 heard that at least 35 men abused as children by Brother Robert Best and Father Gerald Ridsdale had committed suicide, and there were calls for urgent action to prevent more deaths.
The pressure for an inquiry included comments by a former manager from the church's social welfare arm last week and a victims' group.
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Melbourne lawyer Judy Courtin, the rally organiser, said the high number of suicides revealed the need for an inquiry to deliver justice for victims and ensure adequate support.
In August, The Age reported a Ballarat policeman had found 26 of Best and Ridsdale's victims had committed suicide.
But Ms Courtin said families of nine further victims had come forward to say their relatives had also killed themselves after they were abused by at least one of the men. She said the details of each suicide should be handed to the coroner for investigation and recommendations to prevent further suicides.
"This number of 35, the ones we know about, relate to just two clergy and two schools," she said. "Our Attorney-General Robert Clark made a public commitment back in August and said he would take all of these matters very seriously.
"Not only is our Attorney-General not taking these matters seriously, by using delaying tactics, this government inaction is increasing the risk of further suicides … We are not going away until [the] government holds a state-led independent statutory inquiry into what have been decades of despicable and reprehensible crimes against the children of this state."
Protesters also heard from abuse survivor Stephen Woods, who said if the government did not act, it did not care.
Mr Woods, who went to school with people who had since committed suicide, said an inquiry should document the extent of the abuse and allow survivors to tell their stories.
A spokesman for Mr Clark said the Philip Cummins inquiry into protecting vulnerable children, which is not investigating abuse within religious bodies, might deliver relevant findings. He said Mr Clark would not act until that report, due in January, was delivered.
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