George Pell believed Catholic Brother may have been involved in abuse

Cardinal Pell has tells commission what he knew of allegations of abuse by Catholic Brother and at St Patrick’s College.

Cardinal George Pell believed a Catholic Brother may have been involved in “paedophilia activity” with pupils at a church-run school as far back as 1973, a royal commission has heard.

The brother, Edward Dolan, was one of a number of Catholic priests or teachers the Cardinal suspected or was told may have been involved in sexualised behaviour with children during the early years of his career.

Speaking to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse this morning by videolink from Rome, this is the first time Cardinal Pell has given such detailed evidence under oath about his early knowledge of potential offending by others in the church.

In 1973, when he was an assistant priest at the Ballarat East parish in Victoria, Cardinal Pell heard “one or two fleeting references ... to misbehaviour by Dowlan, which I concluded might have been paedophilia activity.”

Pell’s testimony: day one, as it happened

While he heard “no specific information” about sexual assaults being conducted by Dowlan, the St Patrick’s College student who made the “fleeting references” was “a good and honest lad and I didn’t think he’d be telling ... lies,” Cardinal Pell said.

The cardinal was not asked what action he took after receiving this information. The commission has heard Dowlan was moved around several Christian Brothers schools for nearly 20 years before being convicted for abusing boys in his care.

Another Catholic teacher at the school, Leo Fitzgerald, was known to kiss the pupils goodbye and to take some swimming naked, Cardinal Pell said.

The kissing “was common knowledge and the general conviction was it was harmless enough,” said Cardinal Pell, who was also the episcopal vicar with responsibility for education, although he did not have direct authority for the school.

“People were aware of it and they weren’t insisting that anything be done,” he said.

When other students and priests came to him to report allegations of physical and sexual abuse at St Patrick’s, Cardinal Pell said he went to see the school chaplain, who told him “Yes, there are problems ... but I think the Brothers have got the matter in hand,” the commission

heard.

During his previous appointment at the diocese’s Swan Hill parish, Cardinal Pell had read a newspaper report about a local priest, Monsignor John Day, who left his position following a police investigation into alleged child sexual abuse.

The late Monsignor Day was subsequently appointed as priest to another parish in the diocese, the commission heard. Cardinal Pell, who said he was aware of the decision, today described it as “unacceptable”, although he was not asked what action, if any, he took at the time.