AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
March 1, 2016
Beau Donelly, Jane Lee
As Cardinal Pell appears before the royal commision to answer questions about his role in the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, just who are some of the worst offenders in Victoria?
Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale
One Australia’s worst paedophiles, former Ballarat priest Gerald Ridsdale has been convicted of 138 sex offences against children – some as young as four – involving more than 50 victims.
Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat in 1961. The first complaint about his behaviour towards children was received by the church that same year. Ridsdale would continue to abuse children over the next three decades.
Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns moved Ridsdale to a number of parishes around Victoria and Sydney amid abuse allegations against him over many years before Ridsdale asked him for leave in 1988 “so that I may be removed from the kind of work that has proved to be a temptation and a difficulty to me”.
Cardinal Pell said he accepts no responsibility for Ridsdale’s movements when he was a member of the College of Consultors, which advised the Bishop on movements of parish priests.
Cardinal Pell said he was never told about Ridsdale’s offending while he was in Ballarat, including as an adviser to Bishop Mulkearns from 1977.
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