WASHINGTON (DC)
Washington Post
May 7, 2018
By Meagan Flynn
Denis Ryan spent more than half his life waiting for someone to listen.
Nearly 50 years ago, when he was a detective on the police force in Victoria, Australia, he tried to tell his superiors that a prominent priest, Monsignor John Day, was sexually assaulting and molesting altar boys and Catholic school girls. Ryan had interviewed 12 alleged victims by 1972, taking statements from all of them.
But Ryan’s superiors — devout Catholics, some of whom were close to Day — didn’t want to hear it, according to a 2017 report.
The superintendent of police told Ryan to drop the investigation, the report said. A top inspector recommended no charges be filed. Day, who was never charged, denied the allegations and was transferred from his post in the town of Mildura and became a priest at another parish far away in Victoria, where he died in 1978.
Ryan resigned, effectively forced out of his job because he wouldn’t stop investigating, the report said. He lost his pension and his benefits, as well as his pay, and became a fruit packer.
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