Ballarat Diocese Waited Months before Moving Priest after Complaint – Inquiry

By Melissa Davey
The Guardian
December 10, 2015

http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/10/ballarat-archdiocese-waited-months-before-moving-priest-after-complaint-inquiry

Child sex abuse inquiry hears bishop did not send Paul David Ryan away after he tried to take bath with young boy so as not to arouse suspicion about him

Monsignor Glynn Murphy leaves the child abuse royal commission hearing in Melbourne on Thursday. Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/AAP

A Catholic priest escaped immediate censure for trying to take a bath with a young boy because church leaders in Victoria did not want to arouse suspicion about him, the child abuse inquiry has been told.

In 1991 the archdiocese of Ballarat heard from a mother who complained that Paul David Ryan tried to have a bath with her youngest son when he was 12 or 13.

Giving evidence to the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse, an Australian army chaplain, Monsignor Glynn Murphy, who was the bishop’s secretary at Ballarat between 1990 and 1997, said the bishop, Ronald Mulkearns, subsequently told him that Ryan was to be sent to another parish, in Ararat.

However, he was not sent there until Easter, weeks after the complaint was made to Murphy, “so that his change would not have been seen as out of the ordinary”, Murphy said. After a few months at Ararat, Ryan was sent to the US for treatment.

Murphy told the commission that although he was aware that Ryan was being sent to the US, he did not know that was to receive treatment for his behaviour towards young boys.

Counsel assisting, Angus Stewart, challenged Murphy, saying; “I suggest to you, monsignor, that it is not believable that you didn’t know that Ryan was being sent to the US for treatment in respect of his propensity for his sexual conduct with children.”

But Murphy said he did not take the mother’s complaint against Ryan to indicate a propensity for sexually abusing children, and that he was never told what kind of treatment Ryan was going to receive in the US.

When Ryan returned from the US in September 1991, Mulkearns told Murphy he was available for placement at a parish. Ryan was sent to Ararat as an assistant priest, where he was not placed under any formal supervision.

The commission heard that Ryan was accused of abusing children while in the US, and a complaint was made to the bishop of Ballarat. However, Murphy said he was never informed of the complaint and no restrictions were placed on Ryan’s access to children in Ararat.

Four people made a claim of child sexual abuse against Ryan, with the abuse allegedly occurring between 1979 and 1992.

One claim related to the parish of Penshurst, one to the parish of Ararat, and another two to incidents in the US. All resulted in compensation from the archdiocese of Ballarat, with a total payment of just over $182,000 and an average of almost $46,000 each claimant.

In 2006 Ryan admitted assaulting an altar boy and was jailed for 18 months.

Earlier on Thursday, Murphy also denied giving “the run-around” to lawyers representing Paul Levey, a victim of paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, when they served a writ on the Ballarat diocese in 1994.

Documents revealed Murphy responded to the writ, which he said was sent to the wrong place, by making the lawyers “chase” it around.

“What this shows is that you were being unhelpful and giving some pleasure to someone who was seeking to seek legal redress against the diocese of Ballarat,” Stewart said.

The hearings continue.