Australian cardinal didn’t quickly act on pedophile claim
Australian cardinal admits abuse failure, wants to help town
(about 13 hours later)
CANBERRA, Australia — A senior Vatican official told an Australian sex abuse inquiry on Thursday that he did not immediately act when a boy raised abuse allegations against a cleric in the 1970s and should have done more.
ROME — A top Vatican official vowed Thursday to work to put an end to the rash of suicides in his Australian hometown over the church sex abuse scandal after meeting with victims and acknowledging that he failed to act on an allegation decades ago.
But Australian Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, denied allegations that he angrily dismissed an allegation against the same cleric made by another schoolboy, attempted to bribe an abuse victim to stay quiet and joked about a pedophile priest long before that priest was charged.
Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, met with some of the Australian victims of abuse who travelled to Rome to witness his four days of remote, video-link testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission. The commission is investigating how the Catholic Church and other institutions responded to sexual abuse of children over decades.
Pell was giving evidence for a fourth and final day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse from a Rome hotel conference room a short distance from the Vatican.
Emerging from the meeting with survivors at a Rome hotel, Pell read aloud a statement pledging to help his hometown of Ballarat recover from scores of suicides of abuse victims. He said he hoped the city of 100,000 might one day become “an example for practical help for all those wounded by the scourge of sexual abuse.”
Pell has been accused by lawyers this week of deflecting blame for Catholic Church inaction against pedophiles in the dioceses of Melbourne and Ballarat by testifying that he was kept unaware of the allegations through cover-ups by church officials.
“One suicide is too many. And there have been many such tragic suicides,” Pell told reporters. “I commit myself to work with the group to try to stop this so that suicide is not seen as an option for those who are suffering.”
Pell was asked on Thursday if he agreed with some Australian commentators’ opinion that he was “the target of a witch-hunt.”
Ballarat, a heavily Catholic city in Victoria state, has had a devastating experience with the abuse scandal. Testimony to the Royal Commission revealed how the Christian Brothers religious order, in particular, preyed on dozens of children in the schools that it ran from the 1960s to 1980s.
“I’ve never expressed such a view, but I must confess the idea has occurred to me,” Pell said via videolink to the inquiry in Sydney.
Pell was called to answer questions about his time as a priest in Ballarat, and as an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne. The four days of testimony saw the 74-year-old cardinal answer questions from the commission and a succession of lawyers for victims from around 10 p.m.-2 a.m. each night.
Pell told the inquiry he was a junior priest in Ballarat in 1974 when an unnamed student at St. Patrick’s College told him that a Christian Brothers teacher Edward Dowlan “is misbehaving with boys.”
During the final round, Pell acknowledged that he didn’t immediately act when a schoolboy brought an abuse allegation to him in 1974 against a cleric and should have done more.
Pell told the inquiry he was a junior priest when the unnamed student at St. Patrick’s College told him that Christian Brothers teacher Edward Dowlan “is misbehaving with boys.”
“I suppose it was technically a complaint, a lament,” Pell said.
“I suppose it was technically a complaint, a lament,” Pell said.
Asked by commission chairman Peter McClellan what he did about it, Pell replied: “I didn’t do anything about it.”
Asked by commission chairman Peter McClellan what he did about it, Pell replied: “I didn’t do anything about it.”
Pell said he eventually raised concerns about Dowlan with the school chaplain. The chaplain replied that the Christian Brothers order was “dealing with” the allegations. Dowlan was later removed from the school.
Pell said he eventually raised concerns about Dowlan with the school chaplain. The chaplain replied that the Christian Brothers order was “dealing with” the allegations. Dowlan was later removed from the school.
But Dowlan continuing to abuse children as a teacher at other schools until 1985.
But Dowlan continued to abuse children as a teacher at other schools until 1985.
“With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have done more,” Pell said.
“With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have done more,” Pell said.
A former St. Patricks student, identified as BWF, has told the commission that he was 14-years-old in the early 1970s when he went to the cathedral presbytery, told Pell that Dowlan had molested his younger brother and demanded to know what action Pell would take.
At the same time, Pell denied allegations that he angrily dismissed an allegation against the same cleric made by another schoolboy, or attempted to bribe an abuse victim to stay quiet.
“Pell became angry, yelled at me: ‘Young man, how dare you knock at this door and make demands,’” BWF told the commission last year.
“We argued for a bit and he told me to go away and shut the door on me,” BWF said.
Pell said Thursday he did not live at that presbytery at the time and described the language he allegedly used as “ridiculous.”
“The suggestion that I would speak like that to a young person in distress is absolutely false,” Pell said.
David Ridsdale has told the commission that Pell offered him a bribe to stay silent in 1993 when Ridsdale confided that he had been raped by his uncle, notorious pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.
Pell denied the younger Ridsdale’s evidence that Pell, then the auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, had asked: “What would it take for you to keep quiet?”
Pell said he “displeased and upset” David Ridsdale by accompanying the pedophile priest to his first appearance in the Melbourne Magistrates Court on child abuse charges in April 1993, two months after Pell’s contested telephone conversation with the nephew. Pell said on Thursday that accompanying Australia’s worst pedophile priest to court had been a mistake.
Pell has testified that he did not know until 1993 about multiple child abuse allegations against Ridsdale spanning decades.
Pell on Thursday denied evidence to the commission that he was overheard by an altar boy at a Ballarat funeral in 1983 joking with a fellow priest about Ridsdale was having sex with boys.
Pell said it was a “disastrous coincidence” that five known pedophile Catholic clerics had been operating in Pell’s hometown of Ballarat while he served there as a priest.
“We now know it was one of the very worst places in Australia” for child sex crime, Pell said.
The two dozen Australian abuse victims and their companions who traveled across the globe to witness Pell’s testimony had hoped for a meeting with the pope before they return home on Friday.
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said no papal audience was planned with the victims.
However, the survivors had a meeting scheduled Thursday morning Rome time with the Rev. Hans Zollner, who is a member of the pope’s sex abuse advisory commission.
An emotional and visibly exhausted David Ridsdale said several survivors would meet with Pell on Friday and planned to tell him they believe the church still hasn’t grasped the impact of trauma on abuse survivors.
“We hear so much people say things like: ‘It was a different time, or we didn’t know.’ I don’t buy it because there is never a good time to rape children and we need the dialogue to change so people start saying: ‘I can’t believe how ignorant we were and how can we do better,’” David Ridsdale told reporters outside the hotel.
The royal commission — which is Australia’s highest form of investigation — is investigating how Pell dealt with abuse allegations as a priest, educator and adviser to the Ballarat bishop, as well as how the Melbourne archdiocese responded to allegations of abuse, including when Pell served as auxiliary bishop.
Pell told the inquiry that he met with the pope on Monday and arranged to provide a daily summary of what happened at the royal commission. Pell said he did not discuss his evidence with the pope.
“No, not really. Not at all,” Pell said.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
