By CAMERON LUCADOU-WELLS
FATHER Michael Shadbolt says a “dark history” of child sex abuse by rogue priests still haunts his Holy Family parish in Doveton.
The parish had become an alleged “dumping ground” for “problem priests” — four in the 1970s to ’90s have been accused child sex abusers.
That past still causes pain, and stirs the parish’s current priest Father Shadbolt to tears.
Last week, he said the parish, given its history, may be in the “hot seat” at the recently announced federal royal commission into child abuse.
Father Shadbolt described the parish today as vibrant and healthy with a flourishing attendance of 700 at Mass. But, although it had been 20 years since its last child abuse accusation, “all are aware of the past record”.
“Some people in the media think we’re walking around in denial about it but here it’s not true. We’re broken by it. As we speak, you are hearing my tears. Our pain is nothing like the pain of the victims but it’s nonetheless real.”
The most recent accused priest at the parish was Father Peter Searson, who was there from 1984-97. Searson, who has since died, was banned from taking children into the confessional and his presbytery at his previous parish in Sunbury, and was investigated in the 1980s for allegedly touching children.
“It’s very shaming,” Father Shadbolt said. “It’s come as a shock that so many of our priests were abusers. I think these guys were sent here because it’s a poor, working-class, immigrant enclave parish.
“They were sent here because they had serious personality disorders but I don’t believe they were really known as abusers at the time.”
Three other parish priests accused of child abuse were transferred to Doveton in the 1970s and 1980s. Two of them did not face trial until the 1990s and one never faced trial.
In a statement issued to parishioners in September, Father Shadbolt said child abuse had been a “serious problem in society at large, and, as we know too well, a serious problem in our church”.
“We are under the gravest moral obligation to do all in our power to combat and stamp out this evil. The failure of church leaders to deal with the problem [is] almost beyond belief.”
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