BALLARAT (AUSTRALIA)
The Courier
August 1, 2019
By Andrew Thomson
The Catholic Church continues to challenge a clergy sex abuse victim of notorious priest Gerald Ridsdale.
After last month arguing to delay the civil compensation trial by at least 120 days, it has now demanded the victim, who was raped as a nine-year-old in a confessional box, provide a copy of the church’s own rules in Latin.
The victim’s lawyers have been asking the church to hand over archive documents.
Under 1917 Canon Law which applied at the time of the offending, the church was required to keep an archive of all important documents, including sex assault allegations against clergy members and a record of who had seen the documents and what documents had been destroyed.
It’s not known what is included in the archive file of Ridsdale, arguably Australia’s most notorious paedophile priest with past convictions for assaults on more than 50 children.
“For the church to ask me to provide a copy of their 1917 Canon Law was bad enough, but we offered to give it to them even though you can buy it on the internet,” he said.
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