AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Australian Associated Press
Thursday 28 May 2015
As many as 14 priests have been found to have sexually abused children in Victoria’s Ballarat diocese, the child sexual abuse royal commission has heard.
Data before the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse shows there have been at least 130 claims and substantiated complaints of child sexual abuse against the Ballarat diocese since 1980.
Senior counsel assisting the commission Gail Furness said that number included seven claims jointly held against the Christian Brothers.
She said at least 14 priests of the Ballarat diocese have been the subject of one or more claim or substantiated complaint of child sex abuse. Ballarat bishop Paul Bird said he was not certain that all 14 had been substantiated and he thought it was a lower number, maybe 10 or 12.
Furness said data from the diocese’s records show Gerald Francis Ridsdale had been the subject of at least 76 claims and substantiated complaints from the late 1950s to the late 1980s.
Earlier, Bird told the commission that he thought the Vatican should remove a priest from his position if he has been convicted of abusing children, but that it has not always done so.
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