(AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald [Sydney, New South Wales, Australia]
November 24, 2025
By Riley Walter
It was by sheer chance that Rohan Burdett would meet Mother Teresa during a pilgrimage to India in 1995.
While the itinerary included time spent working at her Kalighat Home for the Dying, meeting the woman who would become a saint felt like a stroke of divine intervention. For the pilgrims who spent 10 minutes in her presence, it was as close to God as they could get.
“It was a kind of godly experience,” Burdett told this masthead.
But as privileged as Burdett felt, for years, the memory would be tainted by who he shared it with.
When Burdett closes his eyes now, the picture he conjures of St John’s College is as clear as the day he first walked in as a 15-year-old in June 1992.
After he had spent years “floundering” in the public school system, Burdett’s parents decided to move their youngest son to what was then the only private school in Whyalla, on the western side of South Australia’s Spencer Gulf, about four hours from Adelaide.
The move to the school, run by Catholic religious order the Christian Brothers, promised to set Burdett on the right path; under the watchful eye of the church, he could flourish and fulfil his academic potential.
From his first day, Burdett was welcomed into the school with open arms. A handsome, charismatic and athletic teenager, his popularity quickly grew.
[PHOTO: Rohan Burdett is suing his former principal, the Trustees of the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Port Pirie over alleged historical sexual abuse. Credit:Dan Peled]
Almost immediately, the school’s principal, Brother Robert Callen, took an interest in Burdett. Over the course of Burdett’s first year at the school, Callen would increasingly seek him out in the schoolyard. In letters sent to his student in the months after Burdett’s arrival at the school, Callen gushed over him, winning the teenager over with compliments and promises of what religious life could offer, including the prospect of following in the footsteps of Mother Teresa during a pilgrimage to India the following year.
The attention and promises were flattering; they made the 15-year-old feel special and wanted. But he claims they also marked the start of a period that would shape his life.
In the two years after his arrival at St John’s College, Burdett alleges, Callen groomed him, sexually abused him on several occasions and inflicted trauma on him that lingers more than 30 years later.
Burdett, now 48, is suing Callen, the Trustees of the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Port Pirie in South Australia’s Supreme Court for more than $2.2 millionin damages over the alleged abuse.
“There’s not a day [that] goes by where I don’t catch my breath and think of him and the impact that he’s had,” Burdett told this masthead.
In a statement of claim filed with the court this week, Burdett alleges Callen “engaged in a pattern of grooming behaviours” to gain his trust and to sexually abuse him on several occasions. Burdett alleges the abuse included Callen “touching and stroking” his genitals, slapping him on the buttocks, kissing him goodnight in his family home, and watching him shower.
Callen previously denied the allegations after Burdett first took legal action against his former principal and lodged a formal complaint with the Christian Brothers in 2001. Callen declined several offers to respond to the allegations when contacted by this masthead.
Burdett’s claim has highlighted the challenges complainants face navigating a complex justice system and it has raised concerns about institutions’ decades of inaction regarding allegations of abuse, despite the reckoning brought by a historic royal commission into child sexual abuse.
By the end of 1992, Burdett’s first year at St John’s, Callen’s initial interest in his student had grown exponentially.
In December of that year, Callen, who was born in Newcastle and educated at Adelaide’s Rostrevor College, began writing Burdett, then 15, deeply intimate and personal letters.
“From the moment you began at Saint John’s something sparked between us,” Callen wrote in the first, a four-page letter bearing the school’s letterhead.
“I knew I had to win your trust and confidence if I was ever to be able to get the best out of you. The more I got to know you, the more I could see the real potential in you. Here was a young man who had an enormous amount of talent: friendly, handsome and lots of sporting ability.”
On top of his open declarations of love for Burdett, Callen showered his student with gifts. During trips to Adelaide to prepare for the Indian pilgrimage, Callen would take Burdett shopping at menswear stores. Callen would buy Burdett the same expensive shirts and trousers he wore. By the end of a shopping trip, Burdett said, he would look like Callen’s clone. As well as the clothes, Callen bought Burdett the same aftershave he wore, Aramis Tuscany.
Burdett, who says he suffers from depression, anxiety and panic attacks arising from the alleged abuse, estimates that over the course of several years, Callen bought him $20,000 worth of gifts, including the clothes, a laptop, a phone and tennis racquets. Callen has disputed the amount spent.
[PHOTO: Robert Callen went on to work at St Leo’s College, an all-male residential college within the University of Queensland.]
Burdett alleges that, on several occasions during those trips, Callen entered a change room while he was trying on clothes and fondled his genitals under the guise of helping him find the right sized trousers.
“He’d put his hand down my pants, and he’d touch me up and make comments like, ‘You’re a big boy’ and ‘You’re blessed’,” Burdett alleged.
In response to Burdett’s formal complaint to the Christian Brothers in 2001, Callen admitted to “what might be described as inappropriate physical closeness”, but he denied any intentional sexual misconduct.
When Burdett was 17, Callen organised a modelling photoshoot for his student. Photographs from the time show Burdett dressed in a number of different outfits staring piercingly into the camera, a crucifix hanging around his neck.
As Callen grew closer to Burdett, he spent increasing amounts of time with the teenager’s family. By the time Burdett’s father, Geoff, was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer in 1994, Callen was dining with the Burdett family almost every night. When Geoff died in Whyalla Hospital in November 1995, Callen was in the room.
“It was so calculated,” Burdett alleged.
“I was just too young to know.”
That compassion, Burdett alleges, was part of Callen’s sustained pattern of grooming hidden for years from Burdett’s parents and the local community behind a mask of care and good intentions.
“I live with the fact that I never told my dad. And I live with the fact that my dad died thinking this guy was a really good guy,” Burdett said.
Burdett’s 2001 complaint to the Christian Brothers painted an alarming picture of his former principal’s alleged behaviour while he was the head of St John’s College and a respected figure within the religious order.
Yet despite the allegations, and Callen’s admission that he had acted unprofessionally, he went on to serve in several roles within the church and Christian Brothers-run schools, leaving Burdett to question how seriously the allegations against Callen had been taken.
In 2009, Callen was appointed rector of St Thomas More College, a Catholic residential college at the University of Western Australia, by Barry Hickey, the then-head of the Archdiocese of Perth. He held the role for two years and was praised by the college for his work during the short term. Hickey is not accused of any wrongdoing, and nor is there a suggestion he was aware of the allegations against Callen.
Subsequently, he held positions at St Leo’s College, an all-male residential college within the University of Queensland owned by the Archdiocese of Brisbane, and Christian Brothers-run schools, including Trinity College, on the banks of Perth’s Swan River. Callen has remained deeply involved in the Indian pilgrimages and with Rostrevor College.
[PHOTO: Rohan Burdett, then aged 17, during a photoshoot organised by Robert Callen.]
Despite being aware of the allegations against Callen in 2001, the Christian Brothers did not report the matter to police. In July this year, after Burdett informed the organisation of the possibility of pursuing legal action, lawyers for the Christian Brothers wrote to his solicitor asking for permission to report the allegations to South Australian police “pursuant to its reporting obligations”.
The organisation did not answer questions about Callen’s positions at Christian Brothers-run schools after Burdett’s allegations. Neither the Christian Brothers nor the Diocese of Port Pirie answered questions about why the allegations were not reported to police.
Burdett says the inaction was both a duty of care breach and a failing of mandatory reporting requirements.
“It should have been done,” he said.
In 2003, the Christian Brothers paid Burdett $60,000 to settle his complaint out of court.
The Christian Brothers paid the settlement on the condition that Burdett agree not to take any further action against the order or Callen, and on the basis that Callen and the Christian Brothers denied Burdett’s allegations.
When he was interviewed by the Christian Brothers’ Integrity in Ministry Panel during its investigation into Burdett’s complaint in 2001, Callen said he had “become emotionally enmeshed” with Burdett and his family, and that as a result, “professional and pastoral boundaries became blurred and were overstepped”, according to the panel’s findings.
The panel found that Callen’s showering of Burdett with gifts, including the clothing he bought for him, was inappropriate. The panel found it was “reasonable to conclude that some form of inappropriate and unwelcome physical contact occurred” between Callen and Burdett, “even if inadvertent”. The panel recommended Callen undergo a “comprehensive psychological assessment which will guide us and him in planning out what further counselling or other assistance he may need”.
As a condition of the 2003 settlement, Burdett would “forever discharge” Callen, the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Port Pirie of any future claim for damages. If any inquiries were made of the allegations and subsequent settlement process, all parties agreed to “say no more than the matter was amicably resolved”.
[PHOTO: Rohan Burdett with Mother Teresa during a pilgrimage to India in 1995.]
Burdett, who was 25 at the time, agreed to the terms, discontinued his District Court action against Callen, the Christian Brothers and the Catholic Diocese of Port Pirie, and took the money based on what he now says was bad legal advice and naivety. After legal costs, he pocketed about $40,000.
At the time, South Australia was yet to abolish the time limitations on child abuse complainants pursuing the legal action against their alleged abusers past the age of 20, meaning Burdett had missed the cut-off.
After months of fresh negotiations with the Christian Brothers over compensation, he considered applying to the National Redress Scheme, which compensates victims of institutional child sexual abuse. But he said he was left with little choice to pursue legal action.
The scheme, a central response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, has drawn widespread criticism from victims’ advocates since it was established in 2018. Burdett said if his application had been successful, the scheme would probably have offered him a fraction of the compensation he felt he was entitled to, and that it would not offer proper acknowledgement of the alleged abuse he suffered.
As of August 31, just over a third of the almost 67,000 applications to the scheme had been assessed. Of them, 19,357 applicants had received compensation at an average of about $89,000.
In a statement, a spokesman for Christian Brothers Oceania Province said a defence would be filed with the court so Burdett’s allegations could be “tested independently”.
“As these matters are subject of litigation, we are respectfully unable to respond to specific questions and or issues that may be the subject of evidence in the related proceedings,” they said.
A statement from the Diocese of Port Pirie said: “We have always endeavoured to respond sensitively and with respect for [alleged] victims and survivors of abuse. We remain committed to the safety and wellbeing of all and have in place robust procedures to ensure the safeguarding of children, young people and adults in its care.”
Riley Walter is a crime reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald. Connect via Twitter or email.