Abuse royal commission: George Pell let pedophile priest ‘retire’

George Pell allowed a pedophile priest to retire on the grounds of ‘ill health’, ­despite knowing of complaints.

Cardinal George Pell to continue giving evidence

Cardinal George Pell allowed a pedophile Catholic priest to retire on the grounds of “ill health”, ­despite knowing of complaints made against him over several years and without asking to see evidence of his medical condition.

The late priest, David Daniel, was among several known sexual offenders allowed to retire quietly by the archdiocese of Melbourne’s Personnel Advisory Board when Cardinal Pell was a member during the 1990s.

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Years later, Daniel was jailed for sexual offences against five victims dating back over two decades as a priest.

The revelation, one of several dramatic admissions during the cardinal’s evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse yesterday, came after he accused those around him in the church of “covering up” for offenders.

Defending his failure to act against another allegedly abusive priest in Melbourne, Cardinal Pell accused church officials, ­including former archbishop Frank ­Little and those at the Catholic Education Office, of withholding from him their knowledge of often horrific complaints against the priest.

Senior counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness SC, ­described this account as “extraordinary”, “completely implausible” and “designed to deflect blame from you for doing nothing” about the priest.

“This was an extraordinary world — a world of crimes and cover-ups and people did not want to disturb the status quo,” Cardinal Pell replied.

Between May 1991 and Decem­ber 1994, the commission heard, the Melbourne arch­diocese received six complaints against Daniel, at least one of which detailed the sexual abuse of children.

Cardinal Pell, then an auxil­iary bishop, attended a January 1995 Personnel Advisory Board meeting that accepted the priest’s resignation “due to ill health”. He subsequently received payments from the Priests’ Retirement Foundation.

Cardinal Pell, appearing via video link from Rome after he was deemed to too ill to travel to Australia to testify, told the commission yesterday it was likely that he had “heard about” the complaints against Daniel before the priest resigned.

“I didn’t object. In my mind the primary consideration was whether in fact the person had been sick rather than whether the explanation was complete,” he told the commission.

Under examination by Ms Furness, the cardinal conceded the board’s decision was “partly misleading”.

Asked whether it was wrong for the board to allow another priest, who had been the subject of abuse complaints dating back decades­, to resign due to ill health, Cardinal Pell said: “Yes, that would be wrong and inadequate.”

Earlier, he conceded “I should have done more” as a young priest after hearing allegations in 1973 that a Catholic brother, Edward Dowlan, might be involved in “pedophilia activity”.

Cardinal Pell said he was aware that the Catholic brothers subsequently “shifted” Dowlan to a new position.

He has since been jailed twice for abusing children, most recent­ly last year.

Questioned over his lack of action­ as an auxiliary bishop against another priest, Father Peter Searson, during the 1990s, Cardinal Pell accused the then archbishop and Catholic Education Office of “deceiving” him over their ­knowledge of often graphic complaints that had been received by the church.

These included that Searson stabbed a bird with a screwdriver in front of children, pulled a gun on one child and held a knife to a young girl’s chest inside a church.

The commission heard that, in 1992, several children wrote to the church alleging their mistreatment, with one saying: “We are all very scared. We don’t know where he is going to touch us next.”

Cardinal Pell told the commission he had heard “non-specific” allegations of sexual misconduct by the priest but was advised that there was insufficient evidence to act.

Asked why other church authorities would deceive him, the cardina­l replied: “It’s a mystery but … they were covering up.”

Several of those in the commission’s public gallery groaned when he said: “I accepted the official position given to me that we did not have sufficient evidence to remov­e (Searson).’’

“I have to suggest to you that your evidence in relation to not being properly or adequately briefed by the Catholic Education Office and the reasons for that are completely implausible,” Ms Furness said.

“I can only tell you the truth,” Cardinal Pell replied.

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart has given evidence to the commission saying there was “a complete failure of process as to the handling of complaints” against child offenders by the archdiocese.

Asked yesterday whether he participated in this failure, Cardin­al Pell replied “tangentially and marginally”.

“In retrospect, I might have been a bit more pushy with all the parties involved,” he said.