PRIEST Regrets Role in Moving Abuser

7 News
December 9, 2015

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/30316826/accused-abuser-priest-moved-parish/

A retired Victorian priest says he can't escape some responsibility for allowing Australia's worst pedophile priest to "cause such devastation to so many people".

Former Ballarat diocese vicar-general and consultor Fr Frank Madden has told the child abuse royal commission he accepts some responsibility for Gerald Francis Ridsdale being moved between parishes and allowed to continue offending.

"Now as I understand the extent and the nature and the effect of his offending, which I didn't know then of course, but I take responsibility for my part in not asking more questions or being more curious as to what was happening with Gerry Ridsdale," Fr Madden said.

The commission has heard then-Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew in 1975 that Ridsdale had abused boys, but moved him between parishes and did not suspend his priestly faculties until 13 years later.

Fr Madden, the 1971-1976 Ballarat vicar-general and 1979-1982 diocesan consultor, said he did not know about Ridsdale's offending until 1988 but regretted going along with the bishop's appointments and not asking more questions.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan asked: "Do you accept any responsibility, in your various roles, for the fact that Ridsdale was allowed to operate as a priest in the diocese and cause such devastation to so many people?"

Fr Madden replied: "I can't escape some responsibility for my role in not questioning some of the moves.

"I can understand that in retrospect, as being part of the College of Consultors and as vicar-general I have to take some responsibility, and I regret that."

Fr Madden said he was shocked when Ridsdale told him he had been abusing children in 1988, as he was leaving as assistant priest of Horsham parish.

"He said: 'I have to move on. My past has caught up with me.'

"I of course asked him what he meant by that, and he told me he had been offending against boys, children, and that the matter was the police," Fr Madden told the commission.

"He said: 'I'll go to jail over this.'"

Fr Madden said he now regretted writing a character reference for Ridsdale for a 1993 court case, where he wrote Ridsdale was an outstanding priest who was blessed with real talent.

He said going to court with Ridsdale seemed like a good idea at the time and he did not appreciate the extent of the devastation Ridsdale had cause at that time.

He said the seriousness and extent of Ridsdale's offences were not brought out in that first case but he realised it during his second trial in Warrnambool.

"I just regretted having been there, but what's done is done."

Cardinal George Pell has also said it was a mistake to show priestly solidarity by accompanying Ridsdale to his first court appearance in May 1993 and he did not know the full extent of Ridsdale's crimes.

Fr Madden on Wednesday cast doubt on a former altar boy's claim to have overheard Cardinal Pell say Ridsdale was abusing children again.

Witness BWE this week told the commission he heard Cardinal Pell, then a Ballarat priest, tell Fr Madden before a funeral in September 1983: "I think Gerry's been rooting boys again."

Fr Madden said he was based in Horsham at the time and does not recall going back to the Ballarat cathedral, nor celebrating any funeral mass with Cardinal Pell there.

"I'd be very confident in saying there was never (such) an occasion," he said.

Ridsdale has been jailed for child sex offences against 53 victims and is the subject of 78 abuse claims to the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat covering the period 1961 to 1988.

Fr Madden said there was no occasion when Cardinal Pell said to him "Gerry's been rooting little boys again" or words to that effect.

"Absolutely not, no," he said.