The Marist Brothers of the Schools, commonly known as simply the Marist Brothers, is an international community of Catholic religious institute of brothers. In 1817, Marcellin Champagnat, a Marist priest from France, founded the Marist Brothers with the goal of educating young people, especially those most neglected. While most of the brothers minister in school settings, others work with young people in parishes, religious retreats and spiritual accompaniment, at-risk youth settings, young adult ministry and overseas missions.
St Joseph's College is an independent Roman Catholic single-sex secondary day and boarding school for boys, conducted in the Marist Brothers tradition, located in Hunters Hill, a suburb on the Lower North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The Congregation of Christian Brothers is a worldwide religious community within the Catholic Church, founded by Edmund Rice.
Christian Brothers College (CBC) is a private Catholic school in Adelaide, South Australia. It was founded by a group of Irish Christian Brothers in 1878, and it is now one of three Christian Brothers schools in the state.
St Gregory's College Campbelltown is an independent Roman Catholic single-sex and co-educational comprehensive and specialist primary and secondary day and boarding school, located in Gregory Hills, near Campbelltown, a south-western suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. With specialist expertise as an agricultural school, St Gregory's College provides a co-educational environment for students in the Kindergarten to Year 6 primary school; and a boys-only environment for students in the Year 7 to Year 12 secondary schools.
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne is a Latin Rite metropolitan archdiocese in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Erected initially in 1847 as the Diocese of Melbourne, a suffragan diocese of Archdiocese of Sydney, the diocese was elevated in 1874 as an archdiocese of the Ecclesiastical Province of Melbourne and is the metropolitan for the suffragan dioceses of Sale, Sandhurst, Ballarat, and the Ukrainian Catholic Eparchy of Ss Peter and Paul. The Archdiocese of Hobart is attached to the archdiocese for administrative purposes. St Patrick's Cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Melbourne, currently Peter Comensoli, who succeeded Denis Hart on 1 August 2018.
The Diocese of Ballarat, based in Ballarat, Australia, is a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. It is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and was established in 1874. Its geography covers the west, Wimmera and Mallee regions of Victoria. The cathedral is in St Patrick's Cathedral, Ballarat.
Sir Thomas Francis Little KBE was an Australian bishop. He was the sixth Roman Catholic Archbishop of Melbourne. He was appointed by Pope Paul VI on 1 July 1974 and retired in 1996; he was succeeded by the Most Reverend George Pell. On retirement he was styled Archbishop Emeritus in the Archdiocese of Melbourne. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that Little had led a culture of secrecy in the Melbourne archdiocese designed to hide complaints against several priests and protect the church's reputation from scandal.
Marist College Canberra is an independent Roman Catholic primary and secondary day school for boys, founded in 1968 by the Marist Brothers. The college is situated on 15 hectares and located in the Canberra suburb of Pearce, in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia. The college is a member of the Association of Marist Schools of Australia (AMSA) and the Associated Southern Colleges (ASC).
Patrick Ambrose Treacy CFC was a Roman Catholic educationist who established the first permanent Christian Brothers community in Australia in 1868.
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Toowoomba is a Latin Rite suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of Brisbane, established in 1929, covering the Darling Downs and south west regions of Queensland, Australia.
As distinct from abuse by some parish priests, who are subject to diocesan control, there has also been abuse by members of Roman Catholic orders, which often care for the sick or teach at school. Just as diocesan clergy have arranged parish transfers of abusive priests, abusive brothers in Catholic orders are sometimes transferred.
The Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Victoria is part of the Catholic clerical sexual abuse in Australia and the much wider Catholic sexual abuse scandal in general, which involves charges, convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. The Catholic Church in Victoria has been implicated in a reported 40 suicides among about 620 sexual abuse victims acknowledged to the public after internal investigations by the Catholic Church in Victoria.
The sexual abuse scandal in the Congregation of Christian Brothers is a major chapter in the series of Catholic sex abuse cases in various Western jurisdictions.
Catholic sexual abuse cases in Australia, like Catholic Church sexual abuse cases elsewhere, have involved convictions, trials and ongoing investigations into allegations of sex crimes committed by Catholic priests, members of religious orders and other personnel which have come to light in recent decades, along with the growing awareness of sexual abuse within other religious and secular institutions.
Gerald Francis Ridsdale is an Australian laicised Catholic priest and sex offender. He was convicted between 1993 and 2017 of a large number of child sexual abuse and indecent assault charges against 65 children aged as young as four years. The offences occurred from the 1960s to the 1980s while Ridsdale worked as a school chaplain at St Alipius Primary School, a boys' boarding school in the Victorian regional city of Ballarat.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was a royal commission announced in November 2012 and established in 2013 by the Australian government pursuant to the Royal Commissions Act 1902 to inquire into and report upon responses by institutions to instances and allegations of child sexual abuse in Australia. The establishment of the commission followed revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place instead of their abuse and crimes being reported. There were also revelations that adults failed to try to stop further acts of child abuse. The commission examined the history of abuse in educational institutions, religious groups, sporting organisations, state institutions and youth organisations. The final report of the commission was made public on 15 December 2017.
Sir James Patrick O'Collins, an Australian suffragan bishop, was the fifth Bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat, serving for over 29 years.
St Paul's College, formerly St Paul's Technical College and St Paul's Technical School, was a Catholic boys school in Ballarat.
Ronald Austin Mulkearns was the bishop emeritus of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Ballarat in Ballarat, Australia, a diocese in the ecclesiastical province of Melbourne. He resigned as bishop on 30 May 1997. The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found that Mulkearns was "derelict in his duty".
