HIGH-PROFILE journalist Paul Bongiorno has related his shock and disgust over the actions of disgraced priest Gerald Ridsdale, whom he worked alongside in Warrnambool.
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The Channel Ten personality served as a Catholic minister in Warrnambool during the early 1970s before leaving the priesthood to pursue a career in journalism.
Bongiorno spoke to ABC Radio National presenter Fran Kelly yesterday about the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Sex Abuse. The veteran journalist said the Catholic Church had failed to uphold its own principles of care and compassion.
“There is no doubt Julia Gillard’s royal commission has showed the appalling failure of the Church as an institution to practice the beliefs they taught me,” he said.
Bongiorno outlined his memories of Ridsdale, who was moved to Warrnambool by then Ballarat Catholic bishop Ronald Mulkearns in the early 1970s.
“I know Gerald Ridsdale, I lived in a presbytery with him in Warrnambool,” he said. “I’ve had the victims approach me to appear for them in court cases.
“Let me tell you this Fran (Kelly), I had no idea what he (Ridsdale) was up to. And when people look at me quizzically, I say ‘let me tell you this — there are married men and women now that sleep with their husbands and wives that don’t know their husband or wife is having an affair’.”
“Let me tell you that Ridsdale never came into the presbytery in Warrnambool and said: ‘guess how many boys I’ve raped today.’ They (paedophiles) hide it, it was certainly hidden from me and when it came out after I left the priesthood, I was shocked and I was ashamed.”
Bongiorno told Radio National listeners about how he was inspired by his Catholic education to enter the priesthood and said there were many great men and women who dedicated themselves to the church.
Bongiorno has served as a Canberra correspondent for Network Ten between 1987 and 2014. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) last year.
