A victim of pedophilia in Australia received a maxi-compensation of 1.5 million Australian dollars, about one million euros, from the Catholic Church shortly before the start of the trial. The man, now 58, was a student at the Christian Brothers St Alipius Elementary School in Ballarat, Victoria between 1971 and 1973. He claims he was abused by Brother Leo Fitzgerald and Brother Stephen Farrell, his teachers. The man was also a ‘target’ of the predatory priest, Father Gerald Ridsdale, who was a priest from the diocese of Ballarat, now in prison. For all this, the Church, or rather the congregation of the Christian Brothers and the diocese of Ballarat, has decided to compensate him, according to what the Australian press writes. It is one, among hundreds of cases, of victims who in Australia are seeking compensation from the Church.
The pedophilia affair, which in the country had led to a national investigation, in which the depositions of 15 thousand people were collected and 8 thousand victims heard behind closed doors, had in 2017 talked about a “national tragedy”. A cyclone for the local Church that also hit one of the most important men in the Vatican, Cardinal Goerge Pell, who was later cleared of the accusations. The latest compensation to Ballarat, granted to the victim for abuses suffered while attending elementary school, is in line with the gigantic outlays to which the Australian Church has been called in recent months. The most conspicuous was at the end of January this year given to a 52-year-old man: 2.45 million Australian dollars, more than 1.5 million euros, for the abuses suffered by his teacher, priest Bertram Adderley .
At that time, between 1977 and 1980, the victim was 10-12 years old. From Australia to the Vatican, where the Pope wanted a Chilean victim of pedophilia by the clergy, Juan Carlos Cruz, as a member of the pontifical commission for the protection of minors. And today in an interview Cruz reveals the phone call received from the Pope announcing his appointment. And in the course of which – always reports Cruz, who is committed not only against pedophilia but also for the rights of LGBT people – Bergoglio allegedly said he was “wounded” by the provision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which blocked blessings for gay couples. “I feel that somehow it will solve this situation,” Cruz told the Chilean newspaper ‘La Tercera’. But the ‘Responsum’, as that document is called in technical terms, explicitly reports the “assent” of Pope Francis.