Pedophile Priest Told Altar Boy Sex Abuse Is ‘Part Of God’s Work’


Former Catholic priest Gerald Francis Ridsdale has pleaded guilty to sex crimes against children as young as 6-years-old during the three decades he abused children throughout Western Victoria in Australia. Ridsdale has previously been convicted of sexually abusing 53 children, though his true number of victims is believed to be in the hundreds.

The court heard on Tuesday that the pedophile priest told one altar boy the abuse was “part of God’s work.”

The court also heard how a father laid his naked daughter on a church altar where she was abused by arguably Australia’s worst pedophile priest. People in the courtroom cried as Crown Prosecutor Jeremy McWilliams described how a man twice woke his scared 10-year-old daughter to take her to a Catholic Church in Ballarat where Ridsdale abused her.

The court heard that, on the second occasion in 1974, “Her father carried her to the confessional booth and took her clothes off her, then carried her to the altar and lay her down.” Ridsdale then indecently assaulted the child, telling her, “Jesus died for our sins so we could be forgiven and if I confess to this sin I might be forgiven.” He then kissed her on the cheek.

The West Australian reported that the woman still suffers crippling flashbacks.

In a statement she said, “I feel like a piece of meat handed around for anyone to take a bite of. There is no closure. It can never be undone.”

Mr. McWilliams said that Ridsdale told a nine-year-old altar boy, “God will forgive all of your sins,” as he raped him. He then told the sobbing boy to pray for forgiveness. He also told the boy that if he ever told anyone, God would punish his family.

Now an adult, the man said he had been warned by older boys at the Mortlake Catholic School not to get caught alone by Ridsdale, but he didn’t know what they meant until he was abused himself.

The man told the court, “I am in my 36th year of a sentence for a crime I did not commit.”

“My sentence is for life. My abuse and that of so many others need not and should not have happened and could have and should have been prevented.”

Judge Irene Lawson was visibly upset as she told the man that as a nine-year-old he was in no way responsible for what happened.

The court was told that Ridsdale used his position as a parish priest to befriend children and their devout Catholic families in parishes in Western Victoria, telling some of his victims, “It’s our little secret.”

Defense counsel Tim Marsh said Ridsdale knew what he was doing was wrong and took advantage of the respected position clergy were held in at the time. Mr. Marsh said Ridsdale “is clearly a repugnant figure to many,” who would welcome the prospect of the 83-year-old dying in jail.

But he called on Judge Lawson not to change Ridsdale’s current earliest possible parole date of April 2019, when she sentences him for the 23 charges of abusing 11 boys and one girl between 1962 and 1988.

Ridsdale’s plea hearing will finish on Wednesday.

[Featured Image by ambrozinio/Shutterstock]

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