AUSTRALIA
FriendlyAtheist.Patheos.com (blog)
March 19, 2020
By David Gee
A Catholic priest in Australia who was convicted of sexually abusing more than 30 children says that’s not a good enough reason to give up his title as a priest.
Vincent Gerard Ryan (above), who served a 14-year prison sentence for abusing dozens of boys under the age of 13 — only to be hit with another prison term for abusing altar boys — was interviewed by the nation’s ABC network.
“It’s a duty. I’ve committed myself to it,” he said. “It’d have to be a very serious reason, unless I’m stopped by authority, for me to make that decision and at this moment I don’t see it.”
In the ABC’s Revelation series, filmed on the eve of Ryan’s 2019 criminal trial, the paedophile priest is seen performing mass in his home, wearing holy vestments and blessing the communion wine and bread.
Following his fourth conviction in March 2019 on charges of sexually abusing two boys in the Newcastle region in the 1970s and 1980s, Ryan, 81, is currently serving a prison sentence in NSW of three years and three months.
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