A WARRNAMBOOL priest says he would have been more likely to report a priest for stealing over clergy he suspected were sexually abusing children.
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Father Lawrence O’Toole told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse he took a confession at the hospital bedside of a man in 1988 who said Gerard Ridsdale sexually abused him.
The inquiry heard the man was a school boy in Edenhope at the time of the abuse in 1980. Fr O’Toole, then parish priest at Edenhope, said he felt the conversation with the man was a “confession” and therefore he was bound by the Catholic Church’s confessional seal.
“From my point of view, I would have felt that I was acting as a priest and freeing him,” Fr O’Toole told the inquiry. “Trying to free him of any guilt he may have and any shame.”
Fr O’Toole told the inquiry he did not ask the man at the time if he would consent to him passing the sexual abuse allegation on to police despite admitting he knew it was a crime.
“Well, I would believe that he was old enough and man enough to be able to do that himself,” Fr O’Toole said.
“There was no anger in him, he didn’t knock on my door. I got invited to the hospital as if it were to give him counselling and peace.”
When probed by commission chair Justice Peter McClellan, Fr O’Toole said he would have been more likely to report a priest for committing a property crime or assault than molesting a child.
Fr O’Toole told the inquiry he presumed Bishop Ronald Mulkearns was aware of any priests abusing children.
“I didn’t think it was my role to,” he said.
Fr O’Toole also admitted he was aware victim Paul Levey was living inside the Mortlake presbytery with Ridsdale in 1982.
He said he had seen Mr Levey inside a car with Ridsdale.
He said while he was concerned about the “unusual” living arrangement he did not voice concerns to Mulkearns.
Fr O’Toole said in hindsight it was “naive” of him to think Ridsdale took the boy in as a noble gesture.
He said there was lack of understanding about what paedophilia was at that time.
“Experience has taught me such things as mandatory reporting,” he said. “I’ve learnt a lot about paedophilia that I didn’t know about in my early years.”
