College Normalises Pedophillia as Sexual Orientation, page-19

(An example how paedophilia is really normalised in a community.)

For his first posting, [convicted paedophile] George Pell replaced [convicted paedophile] Ridsdale as assistant priest at St Mary of the Assumption, a small Catholic parish church at Swan Hill, in north-west Victoria.

Some parishioners believe their roles overlapped and that Ridsdale would visit Swan Hill frequently enough to become a regular noted presence. They remember seeing the pair together taking services and marshalling the choir and altar boys.

Ridsdale later admitted he had abused boys in the area, with one altar boy claiming many years later he’d been attacked on several occasions by the prolific pedophile.

One man who has troubling memories regarding this part of Pell’s early career is a former Swan Hill altar boy called Stephen Scala.

He has never revealed his haunting story to anyone until now. George Pell, he said, had a detrimental impact on his life.

Mr Scala was 10 years old when he came in contact with Pell.Photo: Stephen Scala

He describes Pell and Ridsdale’s friendship as a ‘double act’, even though officially Ridsdale had left Swan Hill and was based at St Alipius Church in Ballarat East.

Special altar boys

Scala, then about 10 years old, first approached Pell in the church one day after a service, telling him how he ‘dreamed of becoming a priest’.

‘I clearly remember telling him I wanted to be a priest,’ he recalled. ‘He said in response, “You have to be one of the special altar boys if you want to become a priest and we think you will be”.’

Scala felt ‘very uncomfortable’ at the direction of the conversation. ‘Pell then said to me: “We will invite you to come to the presbytery to have dinner one night and if things go well you will be able to sleep over”.

‘There was no need for me to sleep in the presbytery, I could get on my push bike and go home. We all could.’

It may well have been an innocent enough suggestion from Pell, but it was enough to make Scala feel awkward. After the conversation, Scala recalls Pell sending him to an upstairs room in the church to speak to Ridsdale.

‘Ridsdale sat opposite me and touched me high up on the inner thigh, and moved his chair towards me. He was telling me something about joining the special altar boys and that he wanted to get to know me better,’ Scala remembers.

Scala, now an author living at Sea Lake, Victoria, felt emotionally out of his depth during the disturbing conversations with Pell and Ridsdale and found himself laughing nervously and loudly when he was in close proximity to Pell.

‘It was like a reaction I couldn’t control,’ he explains. ‘I was only young, but my instinct was Pell was quite monstrous and frightening.’

The laughter did not sit well with Pell, Scala revealed.

‘He sacked me and told me I wasn’t good, almost suggesting I was evil.’

Painful fallout

While it was a relief for Scala to leave the church, he would suffer a painful fallout with his highly committed Catholic mother.

‘Our relationship came under great strain,’ he said. ‘I got the impression Pell had spoken badly to her about me and that was devastating for me. Like many people my mother looked up to Pell and he was God’s representative on Earth, he could do no wrong.’

https://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/books/2019/09/16/george-pell-fallen/