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By a Broken Rites researcher
Research by Broken Rites has revealed how one of Australia's most influential Catholic leaders — Bishop James Patrick O'Collins — transferred a sexually-abusive priest to another diocese. O'Collins, who was then the bishop of Ballarat in western Victoria, arranged for Father Leonard Monk to go to the Geraldton diocese, north of Perth in Western Australia, after Monk got into trouble in Victoria.
Bishop O'Collins was born in Australia of Irish parents. According to biographical material about him, he was a plumber before joining the Catholic priesthood. Trained in Rome, he was appointed in 1930 as the Bishop of Geraldton, W.A.. In 1941 he was appointed as the bishop of Ballarat, Victoria, where he remained until 1971. The Ballarat diocese covers all of western Victoria, extending from the New South Wales border in the north to the Victorian coast in the south.
One of O'Collins's priests, Father Leonard Monk, served in the Ballarat diocese throughout O'Collins's reign. Broken Rites has searched the annual Australian Catholic Directories and has found that Fr Len Monk was ministering at Hamilton (St Mary's parish) in the early 1940s and at Maryborough (St Augustine's) in the mid-1940s.
After getting into trouble for touching boys in 1946, Monk was transferred from the Ballarat diocese to the Geraldton diocese. This transfer necessitated an understanding between Bishop James O'Collins of Ballarat and Bishop Alfred Joseph Gummer of Geraldton. O'Collins's former connection with Geraldton — and his seniority over Bishop Gummer — made it easy to arrange the transfer.
Complaints about Father Monk
About 1948, Bishop O'Collins allowed Monk to return to the Ballarat diocese, where he ministered at Camperdown (St Patrick's parish) until the early 1950s. There have been complaints that Monk sexually abused boys while at Camperdown and he was removed from this parish.
Monk's later parishes included Horsham (the parist of Saints Michael and John) in the 1950s, Linton (St Peter's parish) in 1961 and Apollo Bay (Our Lady of the Sea parish) in the early 1960s. He continued to offend.
"Brian", who was an altar boy for Monk at Camperdown in 1948-1952, told Broken Rites in 1993: "Monk used to come to my family's house for lunch, even after he left Camperdown. He kept touching me sexually for three years. I could not tell anybody because my parents would have given me a belting for defaming the clergy.
"I also know another of Monk's Camperdown victims. This boy's parents finally told Monk's superior, and Monk was transferred to another parish."
[Parents in Camperdown were not told why Monk was leaving there and were not told that their children had been at risk and may have been abused. Likewise, Monk's next parishes were not told why Monk was arriving and therefore they did not know that their children were being placed at risk.]
"Basil", a former Camperdown resident, told Broken Rites in 2006: "I was a victim of Monk when I was a boy in the 1950s. I needed to get a lift in Monk's car to attend sports events, and he used to touch me in the car. Monk was very popular — that is one reason why I could not report the abuse. I thought I would not be believed."
"John", a former resident of Apollo Bay, told Broken Rites in 1994: "In the early 1960s, Monk was at the Apollo Bay parish. I was sexually abused by him there for about a year when I was about seven. He used to do it in his car while he sat me on his lap, letting me steer the car. I could not tell my parents because my mum was a staunch churchgoer and she would not have wanted to hear my story.
"Monk was also abusing other boys. He used to drive around to farms, picking up boys to drive them to church."
"Monk's offences, together with the church's complicity, had a bad impact on me and has left me with personal problems. I still am having counselling."
Monk's later postings
After Apollo Bay, Monk was listed back at the Linton parish again in the mid-1960s but, by 1967, the Ballarat diocese removed him and sent him "on leave" for the next four years. It is not clear where he spent this "leave".
In 1973, after Bishop Ronald Mulkearns had taken over the Ballarat diocese from Bishop O'Collins, Monk was again given a posting in the annual Australian Catholic Directory — as a chaplain at St Vincent's hospital, Melbourne. He continued this chaplaincy for several years until his name disappeared from the annual Directory.
In Monk's various parishes, he was not the only sexual abuser. One of Monk's successors at Camperdown was Father Gerald Ridsdale, who has pleaded guilty to committing child-sex crimes in the Camperdown parish in 1961 and later at another of Monk's parishes, Apollo Bay. Broken Rites has received complaints about Monsignor John Day abusing boys at Horsham in 1950-1 (before Monk was there) and at Apollo Bay in 1954-6. And various paedophiles such as Father Desmond Gannon of Melbourne used to visit Apollo Bay on holidays.
Other offenders
Another example of a sexually-abusive priest in western Victoria during Bishop O’Collins’s administration was Father Sydney Morey. See the Broken Rites article about Syd Morey here.
One of Sid Morey's parishes was Horsham, which had at least four sexually-abusive priests — John Day about 1950, Len Monk about 1959, Sid Morey about 1967 and Gerald Ridsdale in 1986-8.
It was Bishop O'Collins who promoted John Day as a monsignor in the 1950s.
Bishop O'Collins's influence
Although Bishop O'Collins never became an archbishop, his Vatican connections certainly made him one of Australia’s most influential bishops. He helped to advance the careers of certain candidates as future church leaders — for example, George Pell.
On 26 February 2007, George Pell gave a talk about the conservative Catholic layman B.A. Santamaria, who nurtured a political organisation in Australia called "The Movement".
George Pell said:
"As a Ballarat seminarian and priest for 27 years my first bishop was Sir James Patrick O'Collins, who chaired the Australian Bishops Committee which supervised the Movement. One of the Movement's principal Catholic opponents was Max Charlesworth the philosopher [at the University of Melbourne] and Bishop O’Collins sent me to Oxford in 1967 so I would be able to answer Charlesworth and his friends."
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