The offences happened in the boy’s home at Port Fairy soon after he had started school.
Father Bryan Coffey is accused of molesting the boy on two occasions during family social gatherings when the assistant priest was visiting.
Father Coffey was later convicted in the Ballarat County Court in February 1999 of multiple counts of sexual abuse against other children, and was given a three-year suspended sentence.
He died in 2013.
In 2021, 50 years after the events, the victim took his case to the Victorian Supreme Court and won, with the court finding the Diocese was vicariously liable for the damage caused by the assistant priest.
The man was awarded more than $200,000 in damages.
The church appealed against the finding that it was vicariously liable, but lost, prompting the High Court challenge today.
It was accepted in the lower courts that the abuse had happened on the balance of probabilities.
But the church says it is only vicariously liable if there was an employee-employer relationship.
They always find an excuse for not owning injustice done to children they have no shame