Australian Catholic Church Reveals Names of 29 Melboune Priests Guilty of Sex Abuse

The filth and dirty linen of the Roman Catholic Church in Australia continues to be dragged into public view as the government inquiry into sexual abuse of children continues.  One can only hope that Australian Catholics will react like their counterparts in Ireland who have largely walked away from the morally bankrupt institutional Church.   As a parent of three children, there is absolutely nothing that enrages me more than the callousness of the Church hierarchy which literally did not give a damn about victims of abuse.  Worse yet, in many instances victims and their families were visited by henchmen for the hierarchy - e.g., Former Knights of Columbus Supreme Chaplain, Bishop Daily and former New York Archbishop Egan acted as such thugs for Cardinal Law - and intimidated into silence.  ABC News (Australia) looks at the latest revelations.  Here are highlights:

Last week the Archbishop of Melbourne, Denis Hart, told Victoria's child abuse inquiry the church had paid compensation to the victims of 59 priests who had worked in the archdiocese.  The church revealed the names of 29 of those priests on Thursday, including repeat offenders Desmond Gannon and Michael Glennon.

However, it says it will not name the remaining 30 priests because several were dead when allegations were made and they did not have a chance to respond.

The church is also withholding the names of priests who were not charged after police investigations.
Meanwhile, Victorian detectives have applied to question convicted paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale about more allegations of child sexual abuse.

The 79-year-old, who is one of Australia's worst paedophile priests, is serving a prison sentence for abusing children between the 1960s and 1980s.

Ridsdale has a hearing before the Victoria's adult parole board within the next month, but detectives have successfully applied to the Melbourne Magistrates' Court to interview him over abuse committed in the 60s and 70s.  In 1994, Ridsdale pleaded guilty to sexual abuse against 21 children. Seven years ago he was sentenced again over another 35 charges.

Here's the list of the names released:

Anthony Bongiorno, John Byrne, Peter Chalk, David Daniel, Bernard Day, Anthony Eames, Nazareno Fasciale, Desmond Gannon, Michael Glennon, Jack Gubbels, Barry Gwillim, Penn Jones, Bernie Mackin, Terry Merivale, Syd Morey, John O'Callaghan, Kevin O'Donnell, Tom O'Keefe, Paul Pavlou, Dominic Phillips, Ronald Pickering, Terrence Pidoto, Victor Rubeo, Peter Searson, Ray Whitehouse

 The Church hierarchy is a putrid cesspool.  Decent, moral Catholics need to vote with their feet and walk away.

Australian Catholic Archbishop: Sexual Abuse Was Covered Up

While not receiving the news coverage in America that it deserves, the government of Australia's investigation into the sexual abuse of minors is ongoing and it is turning up evidence of the same pattern we've seen worldwide: rampant sexual abuse by Catholic  priests, the shuffling of predators from one unsuspecting parish to another, and cover ups orchestrated from the highest levels of the Catholic Church hierarchy.   Recently, in testimony Archbishop Denis Hart admitted that a predecessor had actively suppressed and covered up information on child rape and other sexual abuse.  The Sydney Morning Herald has coverage.  Here are excerpts:

Melbourne's most senior Catholic has admitted the church covered up child sexual abuse, was slow to act against abusing priests and placed its own interests ahead of victims.

Archbishop Denis Hart says a knighted former archbishop kept reports of sexual abuse to himself and that the church was keen to look after itself when addressing complaints, placing its reputation ahead of victims.

"The question of confidentiality of these matters was probably kept in one sense too much in that the church was too keen to look after herself and her good name and not keen enough to address the terrible anguish of the victims," Archbishop Hart said on Monday.

He agreed former archbishop, the late Sir Thomas Francis "Frank" Little, had covered up abuse reports.   "Archbishop Little kept all these things to himself and there were no records," Archbishop Hart told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry.

Pressed on whether there had been a cover-up he said: "Well I have to agree with that."  "The only person who's ultimately responsible is the archbishop at the time," he said.

Archbishop Hart, who has been the Melbourne archbishop since 2001, agreed the crimes should have been revealed to the police.

Archbishop Hart admitted in the past child sex abuse had been endemic in Melbourne's Catholic Church.   Twelve out of 50 priests identified by the church were responsible for more than half of the offences committed, he told the inquiry.

Despite these admitted cover ups and conspiracies to protect criminals,  we continue to see members of the Catholic laity financially supporting this criminal enterprise.  I can only ask myself, WTF is wrong with these people.

Sex Abuse Victim Told to 'Go to Hell' by Catholic Archbishop

In what I suspect is a glimpse of the Roman Catholic Church's true attitude towards the victims of sexual abuse by priests, Australian Archbishop Denis Hart told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to "go to hell, bitch" when the woman was demanding redress for abuse she suffered at the hands of a priest after his suspension as a priest in the 1990s for abusing another woman had been overturned. Although the woman could have formatted her demands in a better fashion, what truly peeved the good Archbishop was that "his privacy had been significantly breached as a result of the early morning visit" by the abuse victim. In my opinion, the good archbishop has his priorities seriously f*cked up, but then with most of the members of the Catholic Church hierarchy I have met in the past, their egos were huge, it was all about them, and they demanded that the laity kiss their asses. Here are a few highlights from The Age:

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MELBOURNE Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to "go to hell, bitch" in conduct labelled appalling by a Victorian magistrate. Archbishop Hart later apologised to the woman in the Melbourne Magistrates Court for what magistrate Anne Goldsborough described as ''appalling words of abuse''.

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Court documents confirm the archbishop's outburst after he was granted an intervention order against the woman, who had pursued him over her abuse by priest Barry Whelan in 2001. The magistrate said that a ''very, very angry'' Archbishop Hart had told the woman to ''go to hell bitch'' after she knocked on his door at 1.20am. . .

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The magistrate found that the archbishop was angry that his privacy had been significantly breached as a result of the early morning visit. But Ms Goldsborough rejected the archbishop's lawyer's claim that the victim's abuse was not a relevant factor in the intervention order court case.

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The Age reported yesterday that a St Patrick's Cathedral newsletter last month named Barry Whelan as a ''living treasure'', despite the church's own investigator finding that he had abused several woman. The archdiocese has said this was a mistake and has apologised.

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The Age investigation into the Melbourne Catholic Church's handling of sexual abuse claims has also reported: . . . . Comments from Melbourne Vicar General Les Tomlinson that there is a church sex abuse ''victims' industry'' that seeks to exploit victims to make money - which the Archbishop yesterday said ''weren't helpful''.

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As I have said before, there is no real contrition on the part of the Church hierarchy and that absent a total house cleaning of bishops and cardinals who covered up for and/or enabled predatory priests, the stage continues to be set for further instances of abuse no matter what blather the hierarchy puts out. The hierarchy is rotten to the core.