AUSTRALIA
SBS
Source: AAP
19 MAY 2015
A Ballarat bishop buried his head in the sand and didn’t think he had to tell police about clergy who sexually abused children, the royal commission has heard.
Convicted Ballarat priest Paul David Ryan says Bishop Ronald Mulkearns knew about him in 1977 but did not revoke his faculties until 1993.
“Ryan thought Bishop Mulkearns buried his head in the sand about the sexual abuse issues in the diocese,” senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness SC said in her opening address.
She said Bishop Mulkearns also did not think it was his job to tell police about Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale, who abused more than 50 children as he was moved between nine Victorian parishes and church locations.
Ms Furness said it was not until June 1988 that Ridsdale was suspended for 12 months, 13 years after Bishop Mulkearns first knew he was sexually abusing boys he met during his work as a priest.
Ridsdale is believed to have abused every boy aged between 10 and 16 at the school in the town of Mortlake, a royal commission hearing into abuse by Catholic clergy and other church personnel in the Ballarat diocese has heard.
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