AUSTRALIA
The Age
May 27, 2015
Timothy Jones
Listening to the horrific stories of abuse coming out of the royal commission’s investigations in Ballarat has led me, and many other Australians, to ask how these atrocities could been ignored for so long. One factor complicit in the silence about this abuse is the historic relationship between Catholic understandings of sin and psychology.
One of the most galling aspects of the Ballarat hearing is the repeated denials from Catholic authorities that they knew what was happening to these children. This has been repeated in many of the royal commission’s investigations and in the Victorian parliamentary inquiry that preceded it.
The scale, scope and severity of the abuse in Ballarat makes these denials hard to believe. Infamously, four of the brothers at the St Alipius boys’ school were abusing children while George Pell was the parish priest. Gerald Ridsdale, the school chaplain, has come to be known as one of Australia’s worst child sex offenders. He was eventually convicted of 138 sexual offences against children, only a fraction of his total offences, according to victim support group Broken Rites.
With offences of this magnitude, how could anyone not see? How could anyone turn a blind eye?
This state of denial is a problem I have been investigating for the past two years, including as a consultant to the royal commission. It is clear Church authorities were well aware of sexually offending priests and brothers. Why else was Ridsdale moved from parish to parish and sent for psychological treatment multiple times?
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