Catholic Church facing potential multi-million dollar payouts as sex abuse victims sue

THE Catholic Church is facing a potential multi-million dollar bill as dozens of angry sex assault victims sue, demanding it pay for their suffering.

Retired bishop Ronald Mulkearns. Picture: Mike Dugdale

THE Catholic Church is facing a potential multi-million dollar bill as dozens of angry sex assault victims sue, demanding it pay for their suffering.

In the last 12 months, 19 ­Supreme Court lawsuits have been filed against former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who was in charge when some of Australia’s most notorious paedophiles were active in his diocese.

Five previous lawsuits concerning the retired bishop have already been finalised.

In the latest case, filed last week, the bishop is being sued for an undisclosed sum for injuries, loss and damage as a result of sexual and psychological abuse dating to 1985.

In court documents, a male victim of Father Paul David Ryan says he was abused at locations including Warrnambool and Glen Waverley.

The writ alleges Fr Mulkearns, Ballarat’s bishop from 1971-97, owed him a duty of care but failed by letting Ryan have contact with him.

“The abuse was perpetrated ... at a time when the defendant knew or ought to have known of the priest’s propensity to ­behave dangerously and inappropriately with minors,” the writ claims.

Ryan had been ordained for just a week when a complaint was first made in 1976.

He was sent to the US the next year, returning after a string of allegations emerged there. He continued abusing children up to the 1990s, and was defrocked in 1993 before being jailed in 2006.

Fr Mulkearns has been accused of knowingly moving priests between parishes despite their offending.

Under his watch, paedophile clergy including Gerald Ridsdale, Ted Dowlan, Stephen Farrell and Robert Best molested hundreds of young children.

Fr Mulkearns, who is reportedly now seriously ill, also allegedly destroyed documents relating to sexual abuse.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which resumes in Ballarat next month, has heard at least 21 priests abused children in the diocese over four decades, leading to more than 130 compensation claims.

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