Jesuit priest ‘preyed on young boys’

AUSTRALIA
The Age

March 26, 2013

Barney Zwartz
Religion editor, The Age.

Molested as a 10-year-old at the Jesuit-run Burke Hall in Kew, Chris Whelan marched to the headmaster’s office to tell him what happened.

”His first reaction was immediate and physical, ” Mr Whelan recalled on Monday. ”He reaches into the drawer, pulls out his strap and tries to hit me across the face.”

Mr Whelan felt relieved when he left Burke Hall for Xavier College, but there he was again to be sexually abused by Victoria’s ”most famous Jesuit” who preyed on several vulnerable children in Mr Whelan’s class, he told the Victorian inquiry into how the churches handled sex abuse.

One boy at Burke Hall was ”kicked up the arse” so hard he later had to have stitches in his sphincter, but first he had to endure a double period of torment from his attacker.

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