A WARRNAMBOOL priest says he would have been more likely to report a
priest for stealing over clergy he suspected were sexually abusing
children. 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.
http://www.araratadvertiser.com.au/story/3571415/priest-stayed-silent-on-child-sex-abuse/?cs=2452
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.
http://www.araratadvertiser.com.au/story/3571415/priest-stayed-silent-on-child-sex-abuse/?cs=2452