You'll Go to Hell If You Speak Out: Priest

news.com.au
April 16, 2015

http://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/youll-go-to-hell-if-you-speak-out-priest/story-e6frfku9-1227306798569

A CATHOLIC priest at the notorious Neerkol orphanage in central Queensland brutally abused boys as young as nine and told his victims they would go to hell if they spoke out, a royal commission has heard.

THREE former residents of the orphanage told the inquiry into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse on Thursday resident priest Father John Anderson regularly molested or raped them during their time there.

David Owen, 76, said the now-deceased Fr Anderson began molesting him after he became an altar boy at age nine.

The abuse quickly escalated to the point where the priest was raping him up to two times a week, continuing over a period of two years.

"I was told by Father Anderson that it was not a sin for a child to have impurity with a priest but it was a mortal sin to tell anyone about it - and that if I did so, I would go to hell," Mr Owen told the commission.

He said he was punished by the nuns who ran the orphanage when he complained of the behaviour and that an inspector from the state children's department also turned a blind eye.

"He (the inspector) said that he knew Father Anderson was abusing me but I wasn't to tell anyone and that if I was caught bleeding I was to say that it was piles," Mr Owen said.

A 77-year-old former resident said he was also abused by Father Anderson from the age of nine or 10 and also by another late resident priest named Reginald Durham.

The commission heard Father Durham would entice children to the presbytery with food.

A 52-year-old woman, known as AYA, said Fr Durham began kissing her and touching her inappropriately on her 12th birthday.

The priest was sentenced to 18 months' jail in 1999 for indecently dealing with a different child at Neerkol but was declared mentally unfit to face further charges.

AYA also told the inquiry she was caned daily and brutally by a nun at the orphanage.

She was applauded by supporters and fellow victims after directing an emotional statement to the Catholic church.

"You will be held accountable for your insidious crimes against children," she said.

"You stole my innocence ... I will never forgive you."

The Rockhampton public hearing into historical allegations of child abuse at the Neerkol St Joseph's Orphanage near Rockhampton, which was operated by the Sisters of Mercy until 1978, is expected to conclude next week.