AUSTRALIA
Broken Rites
By a Broken Rites researcher (background article, updated 5 December 2015)
This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church harboured this child-abuse criminal — Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale — for 30 years in western Victoria while his superiors and fellow-priests remained silent to protect the church’s public image. In 1982, when Father Ridsdale had been abusing children for 20 years, a clergy committee (of which Father George Pell was a member) noted that Ridsdale was being transferred away from Victoria. Thus, he was inflicted on potential victims in New South Wales. Eventually, in 1993, Victoria Police detectives charged Ridsdale in court. He was accompanied to court by his support person, George Pell, who had become an assistant bishop in Melbourne. However, no bishop accompanied the victims. Encouraged by Broken Rites, more victims later spoke to the detectives. In his four court cases between 1993 and 2014, Ridsdale has been jailed for a minimum of 24 years for assaulting 54 of his victims. Broken Rites is proud of its role in exposing the church’s cover-up of this criminal priest.
This 1993 photo helped to expose the cover-up
On every page of the Broken Rites website (in the right-hand column), there is a photo of Father Ridsdale (with his features obscured by dark glasses and a cap) walking to the Melbourne Magistrates Court on 27 May 1993 with his support person, auxiliary bishop George Pell (wearing clerical garb). This was the day when Ridsdale received his first conviction for child-sex crimes. [In 1993, Pell was an Auxiliary Bishop for Melbourne, and three years later he became the Archbishop of Melbourne.]
By 27 May 1993, unknown to Ridsdale and Pell, one of Ridsdale’s victims had alerted the media that Ridsdale was due to appear in court that day for sentencing. Therefore, when Pell and Ridsdale approached the court building, a Channel Nine camera man obtained video footage of their arrival.
That evening, Channel Nine’s news bulletin showed this footage of Father Ridsdale and Bishop Pell arriving at the court. This bulletin was viewed throughout the state of Victoria, including by many church-abuse victims. Viewers noticed that a bishop was accompanying the criminal priest, rather than accompanying the victims.
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