Bishop Mulkearns blessed nearly every Catholic building opened in the Ballarat diocese between 1974 and 1996. Paedophile priests Robert Best and Gerald Ridsdale abused children in the diocese while Bishop Mulkearns oversaw the region.

Survivor Peter Blenkiron, who was abused at the age of 11, believes the plaques should be altered but not removed. He said one of the aim of any changes should be to protect children from future abuse.

“Don’t remove the plaques. Put a line through and add something down the bottom as a reminder of what happened,” Mr Blenkiron said.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse found in February that nearly  one in 10 priests who served in the diocese of Ballarat from 1950 to 2010 was accused of paedophilia.

“(The approach) should be to that of the Holocaust – we can’t say it never happened. You can’t delete the past and pretend it never happened,” Mr Blenkiron said. 

“This is about raping children. It has never been okay and the (focus must be) how do we keep children safe?” 

Bishop Mulkearns’ name was recently removed from a plaque at Warrnambool’s  St Josephs Primary School. A statement said the move was recommended to Father John Fitzgerald by the school advisory council. 

Ballarat Catholic Diocese Vicar-general Justin Driscoll said communities across the Diocese of Ballarat have and continue to seek to respond to the concerns raised by survivors about plaques on buildings that bear the name of the former Bishop, Ronald Mulkearns. He said some communities had removed plaques while other had opted to alter plaques and all decisions had been supported by the diocese.

“When Bishop Mulkearns appeared as a witness at the Royal Commission in February 2016, he apologised for not doing things differently, acknowledging that he should have responded to the allegations of child sexual abuse differently  and that he regretted not doing so,” Father Driscoll said. 

“Now each parish and school community will need to consider the way they will engage in dialogue about the plaques that bear Bishop Mulkearns’ name.”