Predator Priest Gerald Ridsdale Found Victims Wherever the Catholic Church Moved Him across Australia
Herald Sun
UNDER the cover of clergy, Gerald Ridsdale was given the power to be a predator. No occasion was too sacred. No location was out of bounds. No victim was out of reach. The more vulnerable the young children were, the more it pleased his depraved lust. Parents were befriended and in a fooled sense of trust and put their children in the hands of Ridsdale. There were fishing trips to Anglesea, lifts home after mass, beach excursions to Geelong and camping trips to the country. Then there were the trappings at his presbytery. Video games, colour televisions, a video player and a pool table all luring his prey into his evil world. As a priest, parents entrusted him to look after their children. He made the children initially feel special but all that was a saintly illusion. "We were treated like God's garbage," a victim, Andrew, said. RIDSDALE has just presided over a funeral for a man whose family he met in Apollo Bay. Just two days earlier, the man's daughter witnessed her father's death at their farm house. At the gravesite, Ridsdale convinced the grieving widow to allow him to take her young son and daughter away to help them cope with their father's tragic death.
The children were fed dinner and then they became his latest victims. It was in these secluded areas where he often exercised his domination. This was 1975, but the list of young victims had already spanned many pages. Boys were abused during confession, after mass, at their parents' home, on weekend getaways and even after their Holy Communion. Within weeks of taking his vows in 1961, Ridsdale started to sexually abuse boys. The Catholic Church became aware of his abhorrent conduct in 1975 but a veil of secrecy shielded his offences becoming known. It was a policeman who came to see Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns about an incident that involved his son. The father was told Ridsdale would be pulled out and taken to get counselling. The church hopped him around to different parishes across Victoria - more than seven - once complaints were made. But it was not until 1988 that the man who became a molesting monster, abusing hundreds victims, was packed up and sent away to New Mexico in a bid to treat his deviant ways. Victims were being offered $50,000 to keep quiet and protect the church's image. But as the complaints kept surfacing and more police action was being taken, Ridsdale was put on the Catholic Church's insurance blacklist of priests in 1999 it refused to indemnify because there was knowledge of his offending.
CARDINAL George Pell was as an assistant priest with Ridsdale in the 1970s at St Alipius Parish School in Ballarat's east and shared a house together. But Pell has constantly denied knowing about any of Ridsdale's crooked ways. But when they did surface and Ridsdale faced a Melbourne court, Pell stood beside him dressed in garb. Cardinal Pell now said the support in court he showed was a mistake because he was always on the side of victims. Ridsdale's abuse knew no bounds and his own nephew was not immune. David Ridsdale said Cardinal Pell was the first person he went to for support but accused our top Catholic to "twist" his version of events. "The idea that he was unaware of the scale of the problem is ridiculous," David told the Herald Sun. "He is a ladder climbing wannabe and I only wish the Catholic people of Melbourne who know so many truths about him had the courage to speak up." THE perverted desires of Gerald Ridsdale have paved a painful and rocky road for his victims. Decades on, many of his victims have taken their own life. Others are battling alcohol and drug addiction. Some victims are fighting their demons in silence and living as a recluse. "You name it I've done it," Andrew said of his addictions. "Life is never normal from the time you get abused." "He wrote to me once and I burned it. I had no interest in what he had to say." Like many others, Andrew was Ridsdale's altar boy. "He once abused me after Sunday mass while my parents were waiting for me in the car," he said. There were other times when Andrew would be violated and Ridsdale would come and have dinner with the family after dropping the boy home. "He'd abuse me and then tell my mother what a great child I was," he said. Ridsdale's privileged position made it difficult for the stories of young boys to be believed. It was 1955 and Ridsdale, then a 21-year-old, and yet to be ordained. He befriended a family living in a Melbourne suburb and they offered to have him to stay one weekend. A camping mattress was put in the bedroom of two brothers who slept on bunk beds. But Ridsdale decided to sleep with one boy the first night and the brother on the second night. John, who Ridsdale slept with on the first night, could not believe it and now with the benefit of hindsight accepted he was lucky not to become one of the first victims. "It was so unusual and so unsightly," he said. To the boys he abused, Ridsdale was manipulative and devious. John later became his altar boy and despite his mum finding Ridsdale in his bed and being "aghast" by the image, the father did not want to hear about it. "My Dad thought he was Christ," he said. David Ridsdale said family members had to move their cars when Ridsdale arrived for a visit. "He was seen as someone more than human by his mother and she would go to great lengths in ensuring he was seen as something special in the family," he said.
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