Bishop Ronald Mulkearns admits not dealing with pedophile priests properly and wanting to protect church’s reputation

By Megan Neil
Geelong Advertiser
February 25, 2016

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Bishop Ronald Mulkearns has testified at the royal commission. Photo by Mike Dugdale

A VICTORIAN bishop admits he tried to protect the Catholic Church’s reputation but denies trying to cover up abuse by pedophile priests.

Retired bishop Ronald Mulkearns says he is sorry and regrets the way he handled the problem of pedophilia in the Ballarat diocese. The child abuse royal commission has heard Bishop Mulkearns knew about pedophile priests and moved them between parishes.

Counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said Bishop Mulkearns was covering up the conduct of pedophile priests.

“Your time as the bishop of Ballarat was characterised by offending pedophiles coming to your attention and you effectively covering up their actions so the public wouldn’t become aware of and think less highly of the church, is that right?” Bishop Mulkearns replied: “Well, that’s certainly not been my intention.

“I can only say that I’m terribly sorry for the fact that I didn’t act differently in the interests of everybody.” Ms Furness put to the bishop that he chose to protect the church’s reputation over protecting children in the way he dealt with the abuse complaints.

Bishop Mulkearns, the 1971-1997 Ballarat bishop, said that was not completely true.

“I certainly wanted to protect the reputation of the church,” he said.

“I wanted to make sure these incidents didn’t happen in the future and tried my best to work in such a way that it wouldn’t happen in the future, but of course, they weren’t telling you the truth about what was happening, so it made it difficult to deal with them.” Bishop Mulkearns said he tried to get treatment for priests over the incidents he knew about, but there were a lot of other incidents where “they simply weren’t admitting them”.

“I took notice of what the psychologists said about them and in particular of course when they decided it was okay for them to go back into a parish,” he said.

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said Bishop Mulkearns protected the church by moving priests away from where their offending might continue.

“But you also removed them to avoid notoriety coming to them in one parish, you moved them to another parish,” Justice McClellan asked.

Bishop Mulkearns said he did not move the priests without them getting some treatment.

Justice McClellan suggested the bishop’s advisers “knew what was going on” about some priests being in trouble for sexual activity with children.

But Bishop Mulkearns said he could not recall who knew what at that stage.

Cardinal George Pell was among the bishop’s advisers while he was a Ballarat priest.

He will give videolink evidence to the commission from Rome next week.

Bishop Mulkearns said he told the archbishop of Sydney about pedophile priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale’s problems when he sent him to the Catholic Enquiry Centre in Sydney in 1982.

The 85-year-old said he retired as bishop early because he was not handling the pedophilia problem as well as he should have.

Bishop Mulkearns, who has advanced cancer and only months to live, gave his evidence via video link from his Ballarat nursing home but his questioning finished after 90 minutes on doctor’s advice.

He will continue giving evidence at a future date.