Six Agonizingly Long, Damningly Silent, Seconds

By Derryn Hinch
3AW
April 17, 2012

http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/blog-with-derryn-hinch/six-agonizingly-long-damningly-silent-seconds/20120417-1x572.html


[with audio]

It took six seconds today to sum up what has been wrong with the Catholic Church for decades over the treatment of victims of sexual assault and the protection of paedophile priests by their Church leaders.

Six agonizingly long, damningly silent, seconds that took me back 25 years to when I went to jail for campaigning against one of those paedophile priests.

Those seconds ticked by in an interview that Neil Mitchell did with Archbishop Denis Hart on 3AW this morning. And the drawn-out silence occurred when Mitchell asked the Church leader if he knew of any paedophile priests still out there in the community.

LISTEN: Neil Mitchell's interview with Archbishop Hart

Men who had been protected by the Church. Criminal offenders against children whom the Church had counseled, removed from the Ministry (as the Archbishop kept reminding us) but kept in other jobs and protected from any Police investigation.

Later, Mitchell went back to a Watergate-style question. What did the Archbishop know and when did he know it.

Today the leader of Melbourne's Catholics said he would cooperate with any formal investigation that may transpire. This was after weekend speculation of a judicial inquiry or even a Royal Commission. And that was prompted by the front page story in Friday's edition of The Age with the headlines: 'Church's suicide victims. Police link at least 40 deaths to clergy. Pressure grows on Baillieu to launch inquiry.'

Several hours ago, the Victorian Premier did just that. Not a fully-fledged judicial inquiry – which former Supreme Court Judge Phillip Cummins from the Cummins Report would have been a great man to head up – but a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr Baillieu said a Victorian parliamentary inquiry will investigate the alleged abuse of children by religious and other organisations. He said: 'We regard child abuse as abhorrent'.

At the same time a police report linking dozens of suicides to sexual abuse by Catholic clergymen will be passed on to the Victorian coroner for further investigation. That report claims the Church had known about dozens of suicides by victims of priests but had 'chosen to remain silent'. Two of those victims who killed themselves were brothers, Damien and Noel Walsh. Their brother, Rob, told The Age an inquiry was needed because of 'the Church's disregard for the law and disregard for the victims.'

Two of the worst offenders were Brother Robert Best and Father Gerard Ridsdale. And one man, seemingly being let off the hook in all of these cover-up debates, is the top Catholic in Australia. The Vatican's main man, Sydney Archbishop and future Cardinal George Pell. He's the church leader who once said: 'Abortion is a worse moral scandal than priests sexually abusing young people.'

There were allegations of sex abuse made against Pell and he stood down and was later exonerated by a church inquiry.

Pell knew Gerald Ridsdale well. They once shared a house together. And, as I detailed in my book Human Headlines, he showed his former flat-mate personal and clerical support by ostentatiously turning up in full robes at Ridsdale's first court appearance decades later. Overnight I received a heart-breaking email from one of Ridsdale's victims. His story next.

FOOTNOTE: This is the story of one of Father Gerard Ridsdale's victims when George Pell was Archbishop of Ballarat. It makes tough reading.

There are many victims of Pell's inability to deal with paedophile priests in the Western District of Victoria including Ballarat and Bendigo in the early to mid- 1970s. At this time, Pell was the Archbishop of Ballarat Diocese.

In the early 1970s, a number of complaints were made against Father Gerald Ridsdale in relation to the sexual abuse of a boy aged 12 years in Bendigo.

I became a victim of Ridsdale's at St Alipius.

Ridsdale pleaded guilty to the offences committed against both myself, the child from Bendigo, as well as numerous other children, and is now serving a considerable jail sentence.

To date, Pell has hidden behind 'The Church' when questioned in relation to all matters involving priest indiscretions, but to my knowledge has never been held accountable for failure to stop these events. Not only has he not been held responsible, he has in fact been able to achieve high office within the church, and apparently afforded the respect and considerations deserving of his office.

To me, and many, many other victims of child abuse by the Catholic Priests, it is George Pell who is equally responsible for offences committed at this time. Pell was in a position to do something at the time. When his continual denials and refusal to act appropriately failed to appease parents, then and only after Police intervention did Pell do anything at all.

This "man" is NOT deserving of respect, he is NOT deserving of his position as Archbishop and he is surely NOT innocent of wrong-doing.

I am not asking for you to launch a great investigation, or to even treat Pell or anyone else any differently. Just be aware that Pell is NOT the man that he, and the Church, would have you believe.