AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 12 February 2015)
This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Christian Brothers organisation protected Brother Edward Dowlan (now known as Edward Bales) for 20 years. From the start, they knew that he was committing criminal sexual assaults against Australian schoolchildren and, instead of dismissing him, the Christian Brothers kept transferring him to more schools, thus giving him access to more victims. When police finally charged him after 20 years, the Christian Brothers supported Dowlan, instead of supporting the victims. The victims eventually won (by getting him jailed for his crimes), but their lives had been damaged by the Christian Brothers— and one of Brother Dowlan’s victims ended up in suicide.
Twenty years after his first crime, Broken Rites arranged for one of Dowlan’s victims to have a private chat with detectives from the Victoria Police child-abuse investigation unit, who then interviewed some more of Dowlan’s victims. This resulted in Dowlan being jailed in 1996. After being released from jail in 2001, Dowlan changed his surname to “Bales” to avoid media scrutiny and, with help from the Christian Brothers organisation, he moved into a private residence of his own as Mister Ted Bales. In 2014, after more of his earlier victims finally contacted the police, Edward “Bales” pleaded guilty to some more of his crimes and was remanded in custody to await his next sentencing proceedings, which are scheduled to be completed by March 2015.
It was Broken Rites that first documented the Christian Brothers policy of continuing to support any criminal member in their ranks, even after a court conviction. A senior Christian Brothers official explained this policy in the Melbourne County Court in July 1996, when Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan faced charges for indecently assaulting boys in Victorian Catholic schools. A Broken Rites researcher was present in court, day after day, taking notes during the 1996 proceedings. The following article is based on those notes.
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