Cardinal George Pell speaks publicly for the first time

UPDATE: IBAC will probe claims police leaked details of child abuse allegations against Cardinal George Pell, after the State Government declined to launch an investigation.

• Victoria Police investigating Cardinal Pell
• Cardinal Pell responds to reports of sex abuse investigation
• Leaked claims against Cardinal Pell aim to destroy: Andrew Bolt

CARDINAL George Pell’s calls for an investigation into how allegations of child abuse against him became public have been rejected by the State Government.

But Victoria Police this afternoon confirmed they had referred claims that sensitive Taskforce Sano information had been leaked to IBAC.

Treasurer Tim Pallas this morning said the allegations, revealed by the Herald Sun, were “very serious” but that Cardinal Pell was “entitled to the presumption of innocence”.

“We believe that it’s important that allegations as serious as this are able to be investigated by Victoria Police in the way that they would normally do,” Mr Pallas said.

“That means without the need for it to be public, unless and until, a course of action has been determined through the courts.”

Mr Pallas said he did not believe an inquiry into how the allegations became public was necessary.

“We’ve got Royal Commissions, we’ve got police investigations and if you added inquiries into that, quite frankly, it’s a bit like a dog chasing its tail,” Mr Pallas said.

“It’s more important that the substance of the issues are determined and the matters are properly before the Royal Commission and Victoria Police investigations.”

Cardinal Pell today wrote to the Acting Police Minister to formally request an inquiry into how the police investigation became public.

“The purported allegations have never been put to me by police,” Cardinal Pell said.

“They are scandalous and utterly false. To learn of the existence of these false allegations through a journalist, following what must be a clear and deliberate leaking from official sources, is deeply troubling”.

Earlier this morning Cardinal George Pell spoke publicly for the first time since revelations that he is the subject of a secret police investigation in Victoria, revealing he does not know whether he will ever return to Australia.

Speaking with the Herald Sun at midnight Melbourne time outside the Vatican in Rome, the third most powerful Catholic leader in the world said he was “pretty good” despite the adverse publicity of recent days.

“Probably not a lot to say until the show is over, I’ve nothing more to say at this stage,” he said yesterday as he drove to collect friends from his apartment in Vatican City for lunch in the capital, shortly after the Angelus Domini midday blessing from the Pope in St Peter’s Square attended by an estimated 120,000 of the faithful in warm blue sky conditions.

When asked if he would now travel to Australia to face his accusers he added: “No, not this weekend for sure.”

Asked whether he would ever return home, Cardinal Pell responded: “I don’t know.”

“I think I have said enough now already on this, I have co-operated,” he said, referring to a lengthy statement he issued on Friday in which he categorically denied the allegations levelled against him.

Cardinal George Pell leaves his home near the Vatican. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

The Herald Sun revealed on Friday Victoria Police’s Sano Taskforce has been investigating allegations that Cardinal Pell sexually abused between five and 10 boys over a period of four decades.

The Cardinal vehemently denies any wrong doing. The Herald Sun is not suggesting the cardinal is guilty, only that allegations have been made which are being taken seriously enough by police to justify a year-long investigation.

Pell decision nears

POLICE are expected to soon decide whether to question Cardinal George Pell over allegations he sexually abused between five and 10 boys.

Senior police are yet to decide whether the evidence against Cardinal Pell is compelling enough to justify sending detectives to Rome to question him about child abuse allegations.

However, legal sources close to the Sano Taskforce investigation did not anticipate it would be long before a decision was made.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday would not say if it would seek to hear from the cardinal’s accusers, who have been interviewed by police investigators.

Cardinal George Pell leaves his home near the Vatican and gets in his car. Picture: Ella Pellegrini

The commission, due to resume in Ballarat today, also refused to say if it would quiz the now 74-year-old about the claims when he appears via video link in just over a week.

On Saturday the Herald Sun revealed Sano detectives have compiled a dossier of claims against Cardinal Pell, including allegations he committed “multiple offences” when a priest in Ballarat and when archbishop of Melbourne.

It is unclear if Cardinal Pell will step aside while investigation into the claims continues.

Abuse victims have called on the commission to detail exactly when and where and under what circumstances Cardinal Pell would be quizzed.

The Herald Sun is not suggesting Cardinal Pell is guilty of the allegations, only that they are being investigated.

Members of the Ballarat Survivors Group expect today to find out who among them, if any, will travel to the Vatican to watch Cardinal Pell give evidence and potentially meet him, as he has promised.

“People want some answers, people just want to know what’s happening, even from the perspective of flights and passports, everyone is in disarray,” said lawyer Ingrid Irwin, who represents Ballarat abuse survivors Andrew Collins and Stephen Woods.

This week will also see former Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns, who has terminal cancer and only months to live, give his evidence to the royal commission.

However, some fear he may take his secrets to his grave.

Cardinal George Pell. Picture: Brendon Thorne/Getty Images

Mr Mulkearns has told his doctor his memory of relevant events is vague and the commission has been warned his cognitive impairments mean he may not be able to effectively answer questions.

“His whole life has been about covering up. Why would he start being honest now,” Mr Woods said

“He’s about to die.

“He’s going to go to the grave, he’s going to go to hell, with his secrets.”

But others hope Mr Mulkearns will tell the truth after previously avoiding giving evidence on health grounds.

“Our fingers are crossed in hope,” said David Ridsdale, a nephew and victim of Australia’s worst paedophile priest, Gerald Francis Ridsdale.

“There’s a huge difference between truth and proof, I’ve discovered.”

The commission has evidence the 1971-1997 Ballarat bishop knew Ridsdale and others were sexually abusing children and moved them ­between parishes, and he also destroyed documents in Ridsdale’s file.

Mr Mulkearns’ evidence could also have implications for Cardinal Pell, who as a Ballarat priest was an adviser to the bishop.

Lawyer Vivian Waller acts for nine survivor witnesses in the hearings and 35 Ridsdale victims pursuing negligence claims against the diocese.

“Victims/survivors have waited a long time to hear from former bishop Mulkearns and George Pell about their involvement in the diocese of Ballarat, a parish with an ­unfortunate and intense cluster of clergy sexual abuse ­occurring over a long period of time,” she said.

Forced out of the shadows

Charles Miranda in Rome

IN some quarters he is known as the “Uomo Nero”, literally translated as the Black Man, a dark prince nemesis against the old guard of the Vatican.

But George Pell’s reputation is as much from the wide power he wields as the No. 3 in the Vatican as it is for Italians to have a good and bad character in every Roman story.

Pope Francis is indeed the good, adored and embraced by millions around the world, and certainly in Rome, where yesterday he spoke from his balcony to 120,000 devotees in St Peter’s Square.

The news of allegations of abuse against Cardinal Pell has fuelled his detractors, who want him stood down until they can be explored formally by authorities.

Then there are the allegations he turned a blind eye to abuse in Australia that simply won’t go away.

When it was reported last week that he would not give evidence in person, many were stunned.

Says one Vatican insider: “He walks about all the time and looks like the football player he used to be. We were all surprised to hear he was so sick he could not travel to Australia.”

The touch of noire Pell as villain began when he took the office as the prefect to the secretariat of the economy in 2014. He was criticised internally for his hand-tailored robes, his penchant for travelling business class and new furniture he ordered for himself totalling several thousands of euros.

Cardinal Pell also has many supporters who fiercely denounce the media as running a smear campaign against him on behalf of the “old guards” of the church, but when pressed they are hard to name who those old guards are.

As for the Vatican, the press crew is leaving it to the cardinal himself.

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Originally published as Cardinal George Pell speaks publicly for the first time