Broken Rites Australia - researching the Catholic cover-up

Broken Rites Australia has prompted the Catholic Church to apologise to a Queensland woman who was sexually assaulted by a prominent priest when she was a schoolgirl in the early 1970s. (Article updated 6 July 2007.)

After the paedophile priest John Sidney Denham was jailed in Australia on 2 July 2010, another family went public and revealed how they warned the Catholic Church authorities about Denham 32 years earlier, in 1978. But the church ignored the 1978 warning and continued to protect Denham until Broken Rites finally exposed him in an article in 2006.

The Catholic Bishop of the Australian Defence Force is involved in court proceedings, charged by police with a child-sex offence dating back to 1969. Bishop Max Davis, now 68, is believed to be the most senior Catholic clergyman (and the first bishop) to be charged by Australian police with a child-sex offence. (Article updated 28 January 2015.)

The Catholic Church has paid settlement money to two victims of Father Peter Brock in the Maitland-Newcastle diocese, north of Sydney. The two male recipients, who are twin brothers, say that Father Brock began abusing them more than 40 years ago when they were in their early teens. Father Brock eventually gave them a written apology for the abuse.

On half a dozen occasions during 2013 and 2014, a Queensland magistrate granted an adjournment to a retired Catholic priest, Father Dermot Casey, who had been charged with sexual offences against ten children. The defence lawyers kept producing medical certificates saying that the priest (aged 78 in 2014) was not well enough to come to court.  Now Father Casey has died, thus defeating his victims. (Article updated  27 August 2014.)

From 1964 to 1994, Father Richard Cattell was a Catholic priest in parishes around Sydney. A boy who was sexually abused by Cattell in 1973 eventually told  police (twenty years later) about the abuse. This resulted in Cattell being jailed in 1994 after pleading guilty. This 1994 court case, researched by Broken Rites, demonstrates that church victims should report sexual crimes to the civil authorities, not to the offending organisation (the church). (Article updated 7 March 2014.)

The Bankstown Express in suburban Sydney (30 August 1994) reported that Bankstown Local Court on 23 August 1994 dismissed two charges of aggravated indecent assault that had been laid against Brother Edward Mamo, then aged 49, who was a member of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart religious order.

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In New South Wales on 2 May 2012, a Catholic priest was convicted on multiple child sex offences after a five-week trial. A jury found the priest guilty of all 23 counts of indecent or sexual assault against boys as young as eight years old. The incidents occurred in the 1980s and early 1990s. For legal reasons, the priest's name cannot be published at this stage but the court will allow publication of the name in due course. (This kind of temporary suppression-order frequently happens, for good reason, in criminal proceedings.)

Broken Rites Australia receives no funding from government or church organisations. We rely on donations from supporters.

You can donate to Broken Rites in two ways:

1. Deposit your donation directly into our  Commonwealth Bank account:
Account title: Broken Rites Australia Collective Inc.
BSB: 063-113
Account number: 11112454

OR

A Catholic boys' secondary school, St Pius X College in Chatswood, on Sydney's North Shore, issued a circular on Wednesday afternoon, 4 March 2015, saying that a Christian Brother from Chatswood has been placed on leave because he is facing court charges re offences allegedly committed at Goulburn in south-western New South Wales in the 1980s. Broken Rites has obtained a copy of the circular, which reads as follows.

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This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Marist Brothers allowed the sex-abuse criminal Brother Ross Francis Murrin to remain in their Order, thus giving him access to more child victims. Murrin has been jailed three times (in 2008 and 2010 and 2018) for child-sex crimes committed during his teaching career in Australian Catholic schools. There is evidence that his Marist superiors were aware many years ago about his criminal behaviour but they negligently allowed him to continue teaching, until some of Murrin's victims finally began speaking to the police detectives. (By a Broken Rites researcher, article updated 24 December 2019.)

Broken Rites Australia has expanded its article about former Catholic priest David Edwin Rapson, who was convicted in 1992 for sexually assaulting a schoolboy. To see the expanded article, click HERE.

To see the full Broken Rites story about Father Gerald Ridsdale (and how the church protected him), click HERE.

To see the full Broken Rites story about Father Frank Klep (and how the church protected him), click HERE.

Phone: Broken Rites Australia national hotline:  (03) 9457 4999
Mail:  Broken Rites (Australia) Collective Inc.  PO Box 163, ROSANNA, Victoria 3084, Australia
Email: Click HERE for our email address

The correct spelling of our organisation is "Broken Rites" and not "Broken Rights" nor "Brokenrights". We help victims of church related sex-abuse.

This page explains how Broken Rites keeps track of Australian court cases regarding clergy child-sex abuse.

Since 1993, Broken Rites has been researching the Catholic religious order of St John of God Brothers (SJOG), which has operated in Australia for several generations, providing accommodation for boys and young men who have an educational or intellectual disability. In these SJOG institutions, sexual abuse was committed against many boys almost from Day One. Victims have told Broken Rites that the sex-offenders even included the founder of the order's Australian institutions, Brother Kilian Herbert. On 6 February 2017, the SJOG Order was exposed at a public hearing of Australia's national child-abuse Royal Commission. (By a Broken Rites researcher.)

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In 1998 Broken Rites received news of the tragic death of Father Maurie Crocker, a priest at St Mary's Catholic Church, Berkeley, in the Wollongong diocese, New South Wales.