Barry Duke, the Angry Atheist

BACK in 2014, it was reported that Australian Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale, inset—originally jailed in 1994 for 18 years after being convicted of 46 charges of abusing 20 boys and one girl between 1961 and 1982—had received support from the late Cardinal Pell, above.

In April, 2014, the sentence of Australia’s most notorious paedophile, was increased by eight years after he pleaded guilty to further counts of abuse, including the rape children as young as four.

It was reported at the time that when Ridsdale first appeared in the Melbourne Magistrates Court in May 1993 to face sexual abuse charges, “Pell was by his side for support.”

Ridsdale, defrocked as a priest in 1993, had shared a house with Pell for about a year from early 1973 at the St Alipius Presbytery, next door to the primary school, at Ballarat.

Pell, then an auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, said at the time that Ridsdale “had made terrible mistakes”. He said: “It was simply a gesture on my part.”

Pell had ‘no idea’ that Ridsdale was a child rapist

Three years later, on the eve of his swearing-in as Archbishop of Melbourne, Pell said he had had “no idea” about Ridsdale’s activities when they lived together.

After pleading guilty to further counts, Ridsdale—now aged 89— had his sentence further extended to 39 years behind bars.

Now its reported by Religion News Service (RNS) that, last week, another year had been added to his sentence for the abuse of his 72nd victim.

In June he admitted indecently assaulting a 13-year-old boy while he worked at a Catholic school in Horsham in 1987.

It was his 193rd conviction for child abuse.

Magistrate Hugh Radford told Ridsdale:

You will probably die in custody

Ridsdale must serve at least 33 years and six months of his 40-year sentence before he is eligible for parole. His earliest release date is April 2028. He’ll be 94 by then.

RNS also referred to Ridsdale’s “close” connection to Pell. It reported that The Pell and Ridsdale families “had long been close in Victoria,” and that Pell:

Knew Ridsdale had been sexually abusing children years before his arrest.

Pell spent 13 months in prison before his own child abuse convictions were overturned on appeal in 2020. He died in January this year.

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