Abuse Victims from Former Girls Home Confront Nuns Caring for Dying Bishop

ABC
February 24, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2016/s4412872.htm

Meanwhile, a lot of people in Ballarat are on edge to hear the testimony of the city’s former bishop Ronald Mulkearns at the Royal Commission tomorrow.

Some victims have waited decades for the bishop to respond to allegations that he ignored complaints that his priests were abusing children.

He’s also been accused of moving paedophile priests from parish to parish during his term between the years of 1971 and 1997.

Bishop Mulkearns is expected to give his evidence by video link from his Ballarat nursing home tomorrow.

Today, some of the victims of the ergion’s most infamous paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, took their complaints to the door of that home.

Charlotte King reports from Ballarat.

CHARLOTTE KING: They call themselves 'Nazzie girls': children who ended up in the care of the Sisters of Nazareth girls' home in Ballarat in the 1950s and ‘60s.

GABRIELLE SHORT: Ninety-five per cent hell. Yeah torture, abuse, fear, terror.

CHARLOTTE KING: The paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale was their chaplain and today a group of the girls, now women, are back to confront the order of nuns who run the facility as a nursing home.

GABRIELLE SHORT: To ask why, they're giving sanctuary to an enabler of this man, who ran amok.

CHARLOTTE KING: Gabrielle Short has come from northern Queensland, and leads the small group of women to the front door.

GABRIELLE SHORT: We've got nothing to lose.

CHARLOTTE KING: She's angry that the order of nuns here is now caring for the former bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns.

The dying bishop has been accused of shifting paedophile priests across his diocese over three decades, and ignoring complaints from parents and victims.

GABRIELLE SHORT: Oh hello, can we speak to the sister in charge please.

RECEPTIONIST: Yes take a seat.

NUN: Can I ask what you're doing?

CHARLOTTE KING: I'm just accompanying them, I'm from the ABC.

NUN: I’m sorry can you turn that off.

CHARLOTTE KING: Once inside, the women confront the sister in charge, an elderly woman with a walking frame. They're promptly asked to leave.

Wendy Dyckhoff, who lived here as a little girl in the 1960s, breaks down outside the front door.

What happened in there?

WENDY DYCKHOFF: I can't. I'll let Gabbie. They want us out, they can't face the truth.

CHARLOTTE KING: At the entrance, we meet with two visitors who offer sympathy to the victims.

WENDY DYCKHOFF: Yeah we're the victims of Ridsdale, who was our chaplain here.

VISITOR: Be brave, be tough. Be tough, be tough. If you can't be brave, be tough.

CHARLOTTE KING: Ninety-one-year-old Eileen Piper has just been to visit the former bishop, Ronald Mulkearns.

EILEEN PIPER: I had a longing to visit bishop Mulkearns. I remember him as a little boy. I used to take him to school every morning, he and his brother. That's what I came for today, to remind him of what beautiful parents he had, to help him through the inquiry.

It might soften his heart.

CHARLOTTE KING: What would his parents want him to do when he’s giving evidence before the royal commission?

EILEEN PIPER: To uphold hid upbringing, uphold the real truth and not be misguided by all the innuendos and extras.

CHARLOTTE KING: Do you think he got that message, no any level today?

EILEEN PIPER: I’m only hoping that maybe when he goes into the stand, he might... might remember. I wouldn’t be very confident. I think he’s too old.

CHARLOTTE KING: Her companion tells me that Ms Piper's daughter committed suicide after she was abused by a priest in Melbourne.

One of the Nazareth Girls tells her she's tried to kill herself eight times.

As the women get acquainted, the police arrive.

POLICE OFFICER: No, no, we know that.

CHARLOTTE KING: Gabrielle Short says she wants the religious order in charge of this institution to acknowledge the needs of the children who suffered there.

GABRIELLE SHORT: Because if they can take care of him over there, well why not the children?

CHARLOTTE KING: A photo is produced from her communion in the 1960s. Gerald Ridsdale is in the centre, surrounded by little girls in white dresses. They're standing at the same statue before us now.

She points to one little girl at the back, her friend Julie, who she says is dying of cancer.

GABRIELLE SHORT: She was raped by Gerald Ridsdale on the day, and she went and reported it to the nun, and the nun took her upstairs to the washroom and cleaned her out with a toothbrush.

CHARLOTTE KING: Gabrielle Short says the victim has never been compensated, despite the fact that the assault led to the removal of the little girl's spleen and later, her kidney.

GABRIELLE SHORT: We're not asking them for us to move back in here, but there's a lot of needs. So that's their obligation, is to look after the children, you know now, today, in their old age. Give them something.

MARK COLVIN: Former ward of the state, Gabrielle Short, ending that report by Charlotte King.