AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (article updated 4 June 2015)
Broken Rites has forced the Catholic Church to admit that it protected one of Australia’s worst paedophile priests, Monsignor John Day, for many years while he was committing sexual crimes against children. At one stage, Monsignor Day had another criminal priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale, working under him. One church leader — Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, of the Ballarat diocese — spoke in defence of Monsignor Day. And a eulogy of Monsignor Day was published in the diocese’s magazine (about this time, Father George Pell became editor of this magazine).
Monsignor John Day was a senior priest of the vast Ballarat Diocese, which covers western Victoria, extending from the city of Mildura (on the New South Wales border in the north-west) to the city of Warrnambool (on the coast in the south). Ballarat is merely the town where the bishop lives. The major part of Monsignor Day’s career was spent in Mildura (Sacred Heart parish), from 1957 to 1972. Mildura was an important parish and Day was promoted to the rank of Monsignor — one rung below a bishop.
When Broken Rites established its national telephone hotline in September 1993, one of the first calls we received was about Monsignor John Day. Now, years later, we are still receiving occasional calls and emails about him.
In late 1993, Broken Rites began researching Monsignor Day. Our investigation led us to a former Victoria Police detective, Denis Ryan, who worked in Mildura in 1962-72. Broken Rites discovered that, in 1971, after Day had been in Mildura for 15 years, Detective Ryan gathered 16 sworn written statements, from 14 boys and two girls at Mildura, detailing how Day had committed sexual offences against them during the 1960s. The offences included buggery, attempted buggery, indecent assault and gross indecency. Parishioners and police notified Day’s boss, Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, in 1971-2 about this evidence. But Mulkearns denied that there was any substance in the allegations against Day and he retained Day in the ministry. Thus, the Ballarat diocese managed to keep the lid on the Monsignor Day scandal for two decades … until Broken Rites ended the cover-up.
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