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By a Broken Rites researcher
Broken Rites Australia has gathered the following information about the career of Father Brian Joseph Spillane, who has spent most of his working life as a Catholic priest in the Vincentian religious order (also called the Congregation of the Mission). A part of his career was spent as a priest working at St Stanislaus College — a Catholic day and boarding secondary school for boys, located at Bathurst in the central west of New South Wales. Vincentian priests and brothers were living on the college premises.
Career outlineBrian Spillane was born about 1943. He has stated that he joined the Vincentian order in 1960 (that is, he began training for the Vincentian priesthood). The Australian electoral rolls from 1964 to 1968 listed Brian Joseph Leonard Spillane as a student, located at a Vincentian address in Balaclava Road, Marsfield,Sydney.He was evidently ordained in the late 1960s (the 1969 Australian electoral roll listed him at St Stanislaus College, Bathurst, as a priest). According to a St Stanislaus yearbook, Spillane served two periods at St Stanislaus, totalling 19 years. The first was from 1968 to 1978, during which he had various roles: a form master of various forms from year 7 to year 12; a dormitory master; a full-time teacher of many subjects, mainly language; a sports coach; the dean of discipline; a lieutenant in the cadet unit; and supervisor of the band. From 1979 to 1983, he was away from St Stanislaus, doing parish and mission work. He spent time at St Anthony's parish in Marsfield, Sydney, where he is mentioned (for example) in a Marsfield parish newsletter in 1980. In 1984 he returned to St Stanislaus College, where he was the school chaplain (the Australian electoral rolls listed him there from 1984 to 1991). According to the annual Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy, in 1991 Fr Brian Spillane was the Superior of the Vincentians living at St Stanislaus. Other priests listed at St Stanislaus in 1991 included Fr Greg Cooney and Fr Philip Robson. Spillane left St Stanislaus College at the end of 1991 and was succeeded as college chaplain by Fr Greg Cooney. Spillane was still remembered in the school's 1992 yearbook, in which the two Year Seven classes were each named after a teacher (one of these classes was labelled in the 1992 yearbook as "Year 7 Spillane"). In the early 1990s Father Spillane ministered at a Vincentian parish (Mary Immaculate) at Southport on Queensland's Gold Coast. From 1995 to 1997, according to the annual Directory of Australian Catholic Clergy, his postal address was the Catholic Mission, Oxenford, near the Gold Coast. From 1998 to 2004 he was listed as the Parish Priest at a Vincentian parish (St Vincent's) in Ashfield, Sydney. The above-mentioned addresses were Father Spillane's official workplaces but these were not necessarily his only residential addresses. From the late 1980s onwards, Father Hugh Murray of the Vincentian order conducted a community centre in Tempe House, at Arncliffe, Sydney. Fr Hugh Murray has said that Vincentian priests who spent time living at this address included Brian Spillane. In 2004, Brian Spillane left the Vincentian order and began living privately in Sydney. Charged in courtDuring 2008 and 2009, Brian Joseph Spillane appeared in magistrates' courts in Bathurst and Sydney, facing multiple charges of sexual offences against a number of children at St Stanislaus College and elsewhere in the 1970s and 1980s.By early 2010, Spillane was facing the following charges:
Spillane was charged by detectives from Bathurst. Investigations are continuing. |
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