Cardinal George Pell knew about children being sexually abused within the Archdiocese of Ballarat, the Royal Commission into Child Sex Abuse found.
More than 100 previously redacted pages of the report were tabled by the Federal Government this morning, making public evidence and findings concerning Pell from the Royal Commission for the first time.
It found that Pell was made aware in 1989 of allegations Father Peter Searson had abused children in parishes and schools across three districts over more than a decade.
However, Pell – who was a Bishop at the time – told the Royal Commission he believed the Catholic Education Office and then-archbishop of Melbourne, Frank Little, were handling the investigations, and it was not his place to investigate.
The commission found that Pell should have taken action.
“On the basis of what was known to Bishop Pell in 1989, it ought to have been obvious to him at the time. He should have advised the Archbishop to remove Father Searson and he did not do so,” the commission said.
Searson died in 2009 without facing charges.
The commission also found that Pell had concerns over child sex abuse from the early 1970s, as he began to question whether Father Gerald Risdale, a priest who committed more than 130 offences over three decades and is now in prison, should take young boys on overnight camps.
“The most likely reason for this, as Cardinal Pell acknowledged, was the possibility that if priests were one-on-one with a child then they could sexually abuse a child or at least provoke gossip about such a prospect. By this time, child sexual abuse was on his radar, in relation to not only Monsignor Day but also Ridsdale,” the commission said.
“We are also satisfied that by 1973 Cardinal Pell was not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it.”
Unredacted & damning RC rejects Pell’s claims he was deceived on paedophiles Ridsdale & Searson “we do not accept that Bishop Pell was deceived intentionally or otherwise” #Revelationabc pic.twitter.com/il6kFWwxSO
— Sarah Ferguson (@FergusonNews) May 7, 2020
