Parishoner ‘turned a blind eye to priest’s abuse of altar boy’

AUSTRALIA
The Australian

AAP

A Catholic parishioner who caught a now notorious NSW pedophile priest abusing an altar boy in a Hunter Region church turned away and said nothing, a royal commission has heard.

An abuse survivor, known as CNE, has testified he was abused by Father Vincent Ryan from the age of 13, usually as he returned his robes to the sacristy or at his grandparents’ house, in the 1980s.

On one occasion when he was 15, CNE, who grew up near Maitland, was pushed to his knees by Ryan, who tried to make him perform oral sex.

“Right then, the sacristy door opened and a male parishioner came into the sacristy,” CNE told the Royal Commission into Instit­utional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday.

“(The parishioner) turned around and walked away. He didn’t even say a word.”

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