Cardinal ‘knew of child sex claims’

CARDINAL George Pell knew a Victorian priest was moved because he had sexually abused children and should have pushed for an unstable and disturbed priest’s removal, a royal commission found.

The child abuse royal commission rejected Cardinal Pell’s evidence that he was deceived and lied to by Catholic Church officials about Australia’s worst paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, and Melbourne parish priest Peter Searson.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse findings relate to Cardinal Pell’s knowledge of abuse allegations in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was a priest and bishop’s adviser in Ballarat and adviser to the archbishop in Melbourne.

Cardinal Pell was one of a number of senior church officials criticised over their handling of abuse complaints or allegations against numerous priests and Christian Brothers in the Melbourne archdiocese and Diocese of Ballarat.

The catastrophic failures were led by the 1974-1996 Melbourne archbishop Frank Little and the 1971-1997 Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who the inquiry found prioritised protecting the church’s reputation over children’s welfare.

The commission rejected Cardinal Pell’s claim that Bishop Mulkearns lied to or deceived his advisers in 1982 over the true reason Ridsdale was removed from the parish of Mortlake, where the priest later admitted his behaviour was “out of control”.

“Cardinal Pell’s evidence that ‘paedophilia was not mentioned’ and that the ‘true’ reason was not given is not accepted,” the commissioners said. “It is implausible ... that Bishop Mulkearns did not inform those at the meeting of at least complaints of sexual abuse of children having been made.” The commission also rejected Cardinal Pell’s evi

WE DO NOT ACCEPT THAT BISHOP PELL WAS DECEIVED, INTENTIONALLY OR OTHERWISE

ROYAL COMMISSION

dence he was deceived by Melbourne Catholic education officials because they did not tell him what they knew about Searson’s behaviour.

“We do not accept that Bishop Pell was deceived, intentionally or otherwise,” the commissioners found.

The commission found Cardinal Pell should have urged the archbishop to take action against Searson to protect the children of the parish. “He should have advised the archbishop to remove Father Searson and he did not do so.”

The unredacted commission findings were released yesterday after the High Court last month overturned Cardinal Pell’s child abuse convictions.