A Jesuit priest is jailed after admitting offences against children

Broken Rites
November 22, 2014

http://brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/290

A Catholic priest in the Jesuit religious order, Father David Rankin, was jailed in 2014 after pleading guilty to acts of indecency committed against three young boys in Sydney. These offences occurred in the 1960s when Rankin was a school teacher before he was ordained as a priest. These three are not necessarily Rankin's only victims; they are merely three who took the opportunity to speak with a New South Wales Police detective. This shows that, even after 50 years, it is never too late to report a child-abuse crime to the child-protection police. Broken Rites has received information about Father David Rankin SJ, from elsewhere in Australia and also in Canada, while he has been in the priesthood.

During 2014, Father Rankin (full name Gregory David Rankin), aged 79, appeared in Sydney District Court for pre-sentence proceedings. He confirmed his guilty plea.

Later the court handed down its sentence. Rankin was given an 18 months jail sentence, with 12 months to be served behind bars before he becomes eligible to apply for parole for the final six months.

According to court documents, David Rankin was a lay teacher at Northbridge Primary School in northern Sydney when he committed 11 acts of indecency on three boys in the 1960s.

The court documents said Rankin molested one boy after volunteering to tutor the 11-year-old after school in late 1963. The abuse continued at tri-weekly tutoring sessions the following year.

On one occasion, Rankin drove the boy to another school in Manly to commit an assault.

Rankin told the victim he loved him and gave him money on a number of occasions.

He swore the boy to secrecy, warning that he and the boy would both “get into big trouble” if the incidents were discovered.

About the same time, Rankin sexually abused two other boys during rehearsals for school musicals. Both of those victims gave statements to police in 2012, leading to Rankin’s arrest.

One victim told a number of family members of the abuse, but did not report it to police until 2009.

The police investigator in the Rankin case was detective Daniel Mason (formerly at Chatswood Detectives Office, Sydney), who has since moved to the Organised Crime Squad at NSW State Crime Command.

When he was a school boy, David Rankin attended a Jesuit school (St Aloysius College, Sydney), finishing there in 1953. He later became a school teacher in New South Wales and this is evidently the period (in the 1960s) in which he abused the boys who figured in the 2014 criminal court case. Broken Rites does not know which schools Rankin worked at but at some stage he was on the staff of St Aloysius College (according to their school magazine).

Eventually, by 1970 (when he was aged in his thirties), Rankin joined the Jesuits as a mature-age entrant to the priesthood, thus becoming "Reverend David Rankin SJ."

The Jesuits are an Australia-wide organisation and therefore Rankin ministered at various locations, not just in a particular diocese. Broken Rites has searched for Rankin in some of the annual printed editions of the official Australian Catholic Directory (published on behalf of the bishops of Australia) and also in another directory (published annually by the National Council of Priests in Australia).

MELBOURNE:
In a 1979 edition of the directories, Rankin was listed at Post Office Box 216, Hawthorn, Victoria. This was the postal address of the Immaculate Conception parish at the corner of Burwood Road and Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn. Rankin was one of seven priests listed at that address in the 1979 directory. The Jesuits also had another address in Hawthorn, which was the head office of the Jesuits for the whole of Australia.

TASMANIA:
Broken Rites research has ascertained that, about the early 1980s. Father Rankin was living as a Jesuit priest in the St John Fisher residential college at the University of Tasmania, while he also acted as a priest at the Holy Spirit parish in Sandy Bay, Hobart. Broken Rites has been told that, at  this parish, Rankin took a very keen interest in the altar boys.

Rankin's court case in 2014 relates only to offences which a victim has reported to the police and only offences committed in New South Wales. Any offences which Rankin has committed outside New South Wales (for example in Tasmania) would need to be reported to detectives in a different police force (for example, the Tasmanian police).

For many years, from the 1980s onwards, the Australian Catholic directories were unclear about Rankin's exact location. In some years, his postal address was listed as being care of the Jesuits' Australian head office in Hawthorn, Melbourne, but this does not mean that he was physically living at that address. In one edition (in 1988), he was not mentioned at all. In the late 1990s he was listed as being "overseas".

Broken Rites has ascertained that, beginning in the year 2000, Father David Rankin SJ (from Australia) spent six and a half years working as a priest in Canada (in the diocese of London, in the province of Ontario). He worked in two parishes in this diocese, Broken Rites discovered:

• From late 2000 to 2003, Rankin was the priest in charge of the parish of St. Francis-St. Martin in the city of London in the province of Ontario, Canada. But in 2002, while Rankin was in Canada,  the Directory of the Natoinal Council of Priests in Australia was still giving Rankin's official address as care of the Jesuits' Australian headquarters in Hawthorn, Melbourne.
• From mid-2003 onwards, Rankin was the administrator of St. Christopher's parish in Forest, Ontario, Canada. A source in this Canadian district has told Broken Rites Australia: "I searched a bunch of funeral services [in this Canadian parish] where Rankin officiated and the last one was in mid-2007. By 2008, there was a new priest here."

About 2008, Father David Rankin returned to Australia and lived with Jesuits in Sydney and Canberra. The school magazine of St Aloysius College Sydney, in its Spring edition for 2009, reported: "Fr David Rankin SJ has recently moved from North Sydney parish to St Christopher’s Cathedral in Canberra where he is the Assistant Priest. David is living in the Jesuit Residence in Canberra."

The website of the Canberra-Goulburn archdiocese reported:

"The Jesuit presence in the Archdiocese has been strengthened by the arrival of Fr Frank Brennan, who will be involved in the new Institute for Public Policy at Australian Catholic University, and Fr David Rankin, who has extensive experience in pastoral work. They join long-time member of the Canberra Jesuit community Fr John Eddy."

The 2011 edition of the Australian Catholic Directory listed the address of Fathers Frank Brennan, David Rankin and John Eddy in Canberra as: "Xavier House, 122 Empire Court, Yarralumla ACT."

On 13 October 2010 a Jesuit newsletter published this news item (under the heading "A trinity of jubilees"):

"On Sunday October 10 [in 2010], John Eddy, Frank Brennan and David Rankin celebrated significant anniversaries at the Jesuit residence in Yarralumla, Canberra.
 
"John Eddy, the doyen of the community who has spent most of his life as a Jesuit at the Australian National University in Canberra, celebrated his sixtieth anniversary as a Jesuit. David Rankin celebrated his fortieth anniversary as a Jesuit.  Frank Brennan celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination as a Priest.
 
"Special guests at the celebrations included Australian Jesuit Provincial Fr Steve Curtin and the former Australian Prime Minister, Hon Kevin Rudd MP.
 
"The afternoon tea also offered guests the opportunity to see the renovations at the Yarralumla residence, which will enhance its value as a centre of ministry."

David Rankin was arrested by NSW police on August 2012 on the charges that later brought him to the Sydney District Court.  In April  2014, the Jesuits' Australian provincial-superior (Father Steve Curtin) told the media that, after being charged by the police, David Rankin had moved from the Jesuit residence in Canberra to a Jesuit community in Victoria, where he was living with other Jesuit priests while he awaited the outcome of his court proceedings.

In the mid-2014 edition of the Australian Catholic Directory, Rankin was still listed as a priest and as a member of the Jesuit Order (in a section containing the names of retired Jesuit priests).  This listing says:
"Rev. David Rankin SJ."