Pell farewell and a moment of revelation
George Pell’s brother has accused a Catholic leader of ordering the late cardinal to back disgraced pedophile Gerard Ridsdale.
George Pell told his family and close friends that he was ordered by a superior to accompany arguably Australia’s worst Catholic sex abuser to court.
At the cardinal’s funeral on Thursday, his brother David raised publicly for the first time claims Pell had walked in tandem with the disgraced Gerald Ridsdale to court in Melbourne in 1993 after being told by a senior church leader to provide support.
Pell’s reputation among survivors and many of his detractors never recovered from the decision to stand by Ridsdale, who had hundreds of victims, mainly in Victoria’s west, including in Ballarat and in smaller towns. The claims that Cardinal Pell was following an official request were supported by Pell’s biographer, Tess Livingstone, but were tightly held within the Pell family and among his closest friends.
Livingstone said Pell had told her in 2001 that the superior was former archbishop of Melbourne Frank Little. “This was a direct order from Frank Little,” she said of the conversation, which Pell requested not be reported.
The revelation came as former Liberal prime minister Tony Abbott gave a eulogy describing Pell as “the greatest man I’ve ever known”.
In an emotional address on his spiritual adviser and friend, Mr Abbott said the cardinal’s greatest achievement was his strength through his trial and time in jail.
“He’s the greatest Catholic Australia has produced; and one of the country’s greatest sons. No one else has been both archbishop of Melbourne and archbishop of Sydney. No other Australian has been as senior in the leadership of the Roman church, or as influential in its conclaves. He was made a scapegoat for the church. He should never have been investigated, in the absence of a complaint. He should never have been charged, in the absence of corroborating evidence.”
Mr Abbott and former prime minister John Howard were among those who attended the funeral at Sydney’s St Mary’s Cathedral, including scores of clergy, led by the Archbishop of Sydney, Anthony Fisher.
Pell, who died in Rome in January aged 81 after complications from surgery, accused the late Little in 2013 of covering up child sex crimes in evidence to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry, which helped spark the national royal commission. The two have been characterised as internal enemies in the church.
Little died in 2008.
David Pell, whose eulogy was effectively the family narrative supporting the late cardinal, did not name Ridsdale, nor did he name Little. “I need to remind you that all ordained priests take a vow of obedience to their bishop,” he told the funeral.
“That is what George was doing when he accompanied that perpetrator to court. He (Ridsdale) was not his friend. (George) was appalled at what he heard in court and did not go back the next day.”
David Pell also said as a junior consultor in the diocese of Ballarat, his brother did not know about Ridsdale’s crimes, despite commentary to the contrary by the child sex royal commission.
The commission found that by the early 1970s, Pell was conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy and involved in a meeting of the so-called College of Consultors on whether to move Ridsdale to Sydney because of his offending.
Pell claimed the then bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, had deceived him about the reasons for moving Ridsdale, but the commission rejected his position.
Livingstone said the claim by David Pell that his late brother was acting under orders was discussed in an interview she had with the cardinal on federal election day in 2001. “I pressed him pretty hard. He was very open with me on every point. He said ‘I will tell you the truth but you are not to write it’,” she said.
If Pell’s claims are true, it would change a significant piece of history in his story. The image of him walking with Ridsdale, now 88 and set to die in prison, stained Pell’s legacy and enraged Ridsdale’s victims, whom police believe are numbered in their hundreds.
Livingstone said David Pell nailed the truth. “Ordained priests take a vow of obedience to their bishops and George took that very seriously,’’ she said. “Over the years, when that footage was replayed time and again, I asked him whether he would set the record straight and he said the ‘honourable thing to do was to keep quiet’, although he said publicly that walking Ridsdale into court was a mistake.”
Even if Little did demand a show of solidarity, it is extremely unlikely this will shift the view of the survivors, many of whom blame Pell for failing to do enough to fight the abuse scourge, despite his having set up the Melbourne Response compensation scheme.
In David Pell’s eulogy he slapped down an unnamed critic from the survivor movement as “now disgraced” and suggested his brother’s role investigating the Vatican’s finances was behind his downfall and incarceration.
Pell’s family and close supporters have claimed that a Vatican conspiracy was behind the decision by Victoria Police to press charges against the cardinal.
Pell was convicted of abusing two choirboys in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Melbourne, in 1996 and 1997, despite the fact there was insufficient time or opportunity for the offending to occur.
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