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Victim of Paedophile Catholic Priest Tells Inquiry He Also Abused a Child

By Thomas Oriti
ABC
September 1, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2016/s4530899.htm

This story from the child abuse Royal Commission contains details you may find distressing.

A hearing examining the Catholic Church has been told that a convicted serial paedophile revealed his sexual attraction to children, even before he was ordained as a priest.

Vincent Ryan abused more than 30 children during his time in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese in New South Wales.

But today's evidence shows there were red flags over the man's behaviour decades before he was arrested.

And in another disturbing development, one of Ryan's victims has testified that he too molested a child, landing him in the same jail as the priest.

Thomas Oriti reports.

THOMAS ORITI: He was in his early teenage years when he first came across Father Vincent Ryan.

CNE: My grandfather continued to say what a great priest Father Ryan was. As a result, I could not say anything about what Ryan was doing to me.

THOMAS ORITI: We can't name this witness, who gave evidence today from a remote location. He recalled in graphic detail how Ryan sexually abused him in the 1980s, even in his own bedroom, while members of his family were metres away, unaware of what was happening.

CNE: He was telling me what he was doing was natural and it was all right.

THOMAS ORITI: He says it left him deeply psychologically confused; so much so that, when he was 14, he sexually abused another child.

Growing up in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese, he says he didn't understand that what he was doing was wrong. After all, he was abused by a priest and was told that everything a priest did was godly and righteous.

But the child he abused went to police years later and in 2009 today's witness was sent to Sydney's Long Bay Jail. There he found himself in a cell, just a short distance away from his abuser.

CNE: He was actually living in the wing next door to me and we went to the same exercise yard. I wanted to kill him.

THOMAS ORITI: We now know that Vincent Ryan abused more than 30 children. He was arrested in 1995 and, during his criminal proceedings, sent letters to Catholic counsellor Sister Evelyn Woodward.

Today, counsel assisting Stephen Free asked Sister Woodward about the content of one of those letters. It relates to the time Ryan was training to be a priest in the 1960s.

STEPHEN FREE: In one of those letters, he actually talked about having known of his sexual attraction to boys for a considerable time; and in fact, before he entered the seminary. Is that...

EVELYN WOODWARD: Yes.

STEPHEN FREE: You remember that?

EVELYN WOODWARD: Yes, I do.

STEPHEN FREE: And he'd actually raised that with a priest before he entered the seminary?

EVELYN WOODWARD: Yes.

STEPHEN FREE: The effect of what the priest had told him is effectively to reassure him that, if he said his prayers, God would look after him?

EVELYN WOODWARD: Yeah.

THOMAS ORITI: When a group of students raised the alarm about Vincent Ryan's behaviour in 1975, he was sent to a psychiatrist in Melbourne.

But after just one session, he returned to the diocese - and the abuse continued for decades.

This afternoon, a former bishop of Maitland-Newcastle, Michael Malone, says the case shows that the Church failed in its duty of care.

MICHAEL MALONE: There was nothing put in place to monitor Vince Ryan on his return from Melbourne. And there were no checks and balances. There was no supervision of him.

That to me was a gross neglect of duty. And it was obvious that he was a perpetrator, allowed back into the community, where he had the possibility and did re-offend.

THOMAS ORITI: Michael Malone wasn't the bishop until the mid 1990s. His predecessor, Leo Clarke, has died.

But with Bishop Malone's knowledge of the Church, Justice Peter McClellan asked him how Vincent Ryan got away with his behaviour for so long.

Bishop Malone suggested that, in the past, suspicious "tendencies" could have been seen as a "moral problem".

MICHAEL MALONE: And if he went to confession, he'd be forgiven of his sins. He'd do his penance and he would be allowed to continue on. That's how the moral problem was understood.

PETER MCCLELLAN: And that understanding was extended to acts of rape of a child, was it?

MICHAEL MALONE: I would think not, but...

PETER MCCLELLAN: Because that's what the penetration of a 10-year-old amounts to.

MICHAEL MALONE: Of course it does, yes.

PETER MCCLELLAN: Was that seen as a moral problem?

MICHAEL MALONE: If it was to that extreme, I'd say no.

THOMAS ORITI: Bishop Malone acknowledged that, when the allegations emerged, he was out of his depth.

But in the end, he understood the need to support the survivors, rather than the reputation of the Catholic Church.

The current Bishop of the diocese, Bill Wright, is scheduled to appear tomorrow.

MARK COLVIN: Thomas Oriti.

 

 

 

 

 




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