Convicted Offenders Residing at Christian Brothers Properties Amid Financial Crisis
Child abuser who preyed on orphans – Properties owned by the Christian Brothers have been utilized to accommodate convicted child sexual abuse offenders, according to recent revelations. Among those housed are a brother who targeted orphaned children and another who maintained teaching roles for nearly thirty years despite senior administrators knowing about his misconduct. This disclosure comes shortly after the Christian Brothers generated outrage among survivors by announcing impending bankruptcy, stating they could no longer sustain their legal obligations in court proceedings.
Institutional Support and Financial Obligations
According to court documents, the Guardian previously uncovered that the religious order retained nine convicted child abusers as brothers within its ranks. The order justified this practice by citing a “Gospel imperative” to “care for all Brothers” and “the needy.” The Christian Brothers’ constitution mandates comprehensive financial assistance for current members, encompassing housing expenses, utility bills for rates, electricity, gas, and water, health insurance coverage, and reimbursement for medical, dental, and physiotherapy treatments.
Additional provisions include a “Community Living Allowance” of $1,200 monthly, vehicle provision with associated costs, funding for spiritual development such as retreats, and partial coverage of food and entertainment expenditures. Land title records acquired by Guardian Australia this week confirm that Christian Brothers-owned properties have accommodated at least two brothers with significant histories of child sexual abuse: Brother Rex Elmer and Brother Peter Toomey.
Brother Peter Toomey: Decades of Misconduct and Inaction
Toomey received his first conviction in November 2005 for ten charges of indecent assault against students at Trinity College in Brunswick during the 1970s, resulting in imprisonment. He faced incarceration once more in 2019 for sexually assaulting two boys, aged fourteen and fifteen, in the 1970s and 1980s. The royal commission determined that the Christian Brothers identified child abuse complaints against Toomey early in his career yet permitted him to continue working in their schools until the conclusion of 2000, almost three decades later.
Senior Christian Brothers officials received warnings in 1973 that Toomey had participated in an “indiscretion” with a boy. Within two years of this initial report, administrators learned he was “too familiar in his touching of the boys.” Toomey was subsequently transferred to Parkville, Forest Hill, and Cathedral College schools in rapid succession. Senior officials were aware that he organized the choir, altar boys, and the school’s “Sexuality Programme” at Cathedral College.
“Because no action was taken, we are satisfied that more children were placed at risk of sexual abuse by Toomey. The reputation of the Christian Brothers was prioritised over the welfare of children to whom Toomey had access, and this was inexcusably wrong.”
He was later relocated to Kearney College at Bindoon in Western Australia in 1990 and faced another report of an “indiscretion” in 1994, which he acknowledged. Despite an additional complaint emerging in August 2000, Toomey remained in teaching positions at three schools until the end of that year.
Brother Rex Elmer and His Victims
Elmer was convicted of abusing children at a Christian Brothers facility for wards of the state, the St Vincent’s Boys Home, during the 1970s. He exploited orphaned children with highly traumatic backgrounds and has been sentenced to jail on three separate occasions, most recently in 2021.
“I have lived a life of emotional turmoil with constant feelings of shame, fear and psychological scarring to the point of spending most of my life since medicating on illicit drugs and alcohol and the associated traumas of such abuse. ‘This abuse has raged inside of me for 46 years and over that period of time I have not lived my life to its full potential. Always for me this abuse has been in the shadows of my mind and at times when I thought I had left it behind it always has returned.’
In 1998, a sentencing judge observed that Elmer’s victims felt powerless. “Here was an adult, a man in authority, a man of God, doing what they no doubt believed to be their private acts that were intrusive, obnoxious, frightening and wrong. They believed they were helpless. Who could they tell? Who would believe them? It is little wonder that all your victims bear deep emotional scars to this day.”
Defending the Order’s Position
A Christian Brothers spokesperson referenced testimony from Oceania leader Gerard Brady in court, which explained the order’s continued support for convicted brothers. Brady stated that such offenders generally lacked financial resources and would become a burden to taxpayers without order support. The order maintained it had a responsibility to care for the needy and an obligation under canon law to “care for all brothers.” “We accept that t
