St Alipius Christian Brothers Boys School under the Spotlight

By Alex Hamer
The Courier
May 18, 2015

http://www.thecourier.com.au/story/3087742/abuse-royal-commission-school-a-different-place/?cs=12

AS A former haven for paedophile priests, St Alipius Christian Brothers Boys School will be under the spotlight in the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse, which starts in Ballarat on Tuesday.

The actions of four men who either taught at the school or held positions of responsibility in the school, such as priest Gerald Ridsdale as chaplain, under the Christian Brothers, will again be detailed and survivors will tell their horrific stories from the 1960s and ’70s.

The school no longer exists, and the St Alipius Parish Primary School is on a different site.

St Alipius Parish PS principal Eileen Rice said they had been open with pupils about the parish’s history to make clear no such abuse would ever happen again.

“We will be making sure that our community knows this school is very different from the one that these children went to, and that they know and feel that the children are safe here,” she said.

“We know that when children are abused, that stays with them into adulthood. It’s the past for us; it’s very much the presence of victims and survivors.”

The abuse committed by Ridsdale and Christian Brothers Robert Best, Edward Dowlan and Stephen Farrell have been linked to dozens of suicides by victims and has seen all found guilty of child sex crimes.

Ms Rice said they would welcome any survivor to the school, to assure them the institution had changed.

“We want to be active, we want to be able to build within our community a real sense of healing,” she said.

“I want to work with the victims and survivors, so that they know this could never happen again. They want to know that it’s a different place.

“It’s important for them to hear that. The more open and honest we are (the better).”

St Alipius parish priest Father Adrian McInerney told The Courier that at the time of Robert Charles Best’s sentencing in 2011, the church community would support those hurt by the crimes.

“There is a great sadness in the community but they don’t deny it,’’ he said.

“The people of this parish are the collateral damage of this, and while that is nowhere near the damage that has been done to those who have been the victims of the abuse, it does hurt to the parish, to the church and, in my opinion, to all humanity.”