What Is the Connection between These Senior Catholics?

By Chris Johnston
The Age
May 29, 2015

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/what-is-the-connection-between-these-senior-catholics-20150529-ghcdeh.html

Father John McKinnon has been visiting paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in prison in he lead-up to the commission hearings in Ballarat. Photo: ABC

What are the connections between three senior Catholic Church leaders and notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale? Both inside and outside of the child sexual abuse royal commission these connections are being tested and incrementally revealed, despite Ridsdale's evidence this week full of noticeable omissions and memory lapses.

Take Thursday, for example, down at Fairhaven outside a nice house on the Great Ocean Road, occupied by former bishop Ronald Mulkearns, 83. He was named this week as the "pivotal person" responsible for failing to prevent rampant child sexual abuse at Catholic institutions in Ballarat in the 1970s, moving Ridsdale around the state and overseas as the allegations against him piled up.

Fairfax Media reported last year the Ballarat Catholic diocese paid for a $60,000 renovation on the coastal house. Another media outlet reported in 2013, after a stroke, that he leads an "active lifestyle" down the coast. The former bishop is not before the commission, citing ill health. Despite that he took an interesting visitor yesterday, who has admitted the royal commission was discussed.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns before retirement, 2002. Photo: Supplied

The visitor was retired Catholic priest John McKinnon, who spent his working years at parishes in western Victoria, including Ballarat. He now lives in Hamilton.

The ABC went to Fairhaven to knock on former bishop Mulkearns' door and while he declined to comment, they found Father McKinnon outside. He was most talkative. Asked what the pair discussed inside, he said: "Obviously the royal commission was part of it, but we don't want to talk about that all the time."

McKinnon said Mulkearns "probably" knew about Ridsdale's crimes. But, he said, notions of paedophilia were different then.

"It is clearer it is a crime now because we know the effect of it. Then I don't think even the psychologists or the psychiatrists knew the effects of it. Just as you wouldn't go to the police if someone was an alcoholic or something, in the wisdom of the time."

He said in the 1970s, the Catholic hierarchy thought Ridsdale could be cured and would stop offending. "You try hard and you can improve. We are a lot wiser now, but it is a bit late. There was a hope that people get their act together. Given the support they need they could change. It was the wisdom of the time."

The commission has heard that McKinnon has visited Ridsdale in prison in Ararat.

On Thursday, the commission's chairman, Justice Peter McClellan, pressed Ridsdale to say who had visited him in prison or called him.

Asked whether Ridsdale had had any visitors since the commission met with him privately on March 17, Ridsdale said only Father McKinnon - and possibly his sister had visited him.

"By the way, you appreciate there will be a record of people who've been to see you in jail don't you?" the judge asked.

"Yes and the people I've phoned."

It has also been revealed that Cardinal George Pell visited Ballarat in March - just before the hearings began - and went to a Catholic school at the centre of clergy abuse claims.

Cardinal Pell is known to be close to McKinnon. Back in the 1970's, when he was Father Pell, he shared a house with Ridsdale and worked in parishes, with Ridsdale, in or near Ballarat.