The Boy in the Presbytery will release on June 25, 2021.
When a priest promised Anne Levey he would help put her young son Paul back on the straight and narrow, she thought her prayers had been answered. Little did she know the reason her 12-year-old son was rebelling was because the priest—Gerald Ridsdale—was sexually abusing him.
But the predator—who had offended before—used the woman’s blind faith in the Catholic Church to his advantage.
Paul was sent to live with his abuser in the Mortlake presbytery. There he was sexually abused by the priest almost every day for about a year. Years later this secret that haunted Paul’s every waking minute was revealed. But if he thought his nightmare was over, he was wrong. Paul would go on to find out that many high-ranking leaders in the Catholic Church knew Ridsdale was a child molester, and yet they did nothing to stop the evil man from snatching Paul’s innocence and turning his life into a living hell. Sadly, it was a story all too common—the Catholic Church became a playground for paedophiles, a safe haven for them to commit atrocious acts. Now Paul is sharing his story in a bid to end the silence.
RIDSDALE BIO WIKIPEDIA
Gerald Francis Ridsdale (born 20 May 1934), an Australian laicised Catholic priest, was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys’ boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that senior figures in the church knew about Ridsdale’s abusing children but protected him. Ridsdale was ordained at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat in 1961. The first complaint about his behaviour towards children was received by the church that same year. Ridsdale held 16 different appointments over a period of 29 years as a priest, with an average of 1.8 years per appointment.
DIOCESE COVERED UP FOR RIDSDALE:
On 13 September 2019, the Diocese of Ballarat released a statement admitting that high-ranking clergy in the diocese knew of sex abuse claims against Ridsdale and afterwards made efforts to shield him from prosecution.[19] This confession came in the wake of a civil lawsuit filed against the diocese by one of Ridsdale’s victims.[19]
GEORGE PELL JOKED ABOUT RIDSDALE ABUSING BOYS:
George Pell accused of joking about Gerald Ridsdale’s abuse of children
By Jane Lee
Updated December 7, 201
A survivor has told a royal commission he overheard George Pell joking about paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale “rooting boys again” more than a decade before Ridsdale was convicted of multiple counts of child sexual abuse.
Cardinal Pell – who will appear at the child abuse royal commission in Melbourne next week – was widely criticised for supporting Ridsdale at his first court appearance for child sex offences in 1993. Cardinal Pell was also present at at least one meeting of senior priests which decided Ridsdale should be moved to another parish, but maintains he never knew children were being abused while he was in Ballarat.
The survivor, known as BWE, told the commission on Monday he was aged between 10 and 12, and getting ready to serve as an altar boy for a funeral mass, when he overheard Cardinal Pell speaking to parish priest Father Frank Madden in the sacristy at St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1983. Cardinal Pell, he said, was officiating the mass because the deceased woman was either his former parishioner or close friend.
RIDSDALE AT ROYAL COMMISSION – SESSIONS 1,2 AND 3.
“After they had exchanged pleasantries, Father Madden said ‘How’s everything your way?’ or words to that effect. George Pell responded by saying ‘Haha I think Gerry’s been rooting boys again’.”
PAT SAYS
****BUY THE BOOK AND SUPPORT VICTIMS OF ABUSE****
We should buy this book to support victims.
This is a horrible story – but only one horrible story among hundreds and thousands of similar horrible stories across the global RCC.
What could be worse than the global sexual assault and rape of babies by priests and religious?
Why is the RCC not a global pariah?
BISHOP PAT BUCKLEY 