George Pell: I was told of clergy abusers

Cardinal George Pell suspected child sex abuse was being committed by others in the church as far back as 1973.

Cardinal George Pell swears on the Bible at the Rome hearing yesterday.

Cardinal George Pell has said he suspected others in the church were committing child abuse during 1973 — the earliest recollection to which he has admitted.

Giving evidence yesterday to the Royal Commission into ­Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Australia’s most senior Catholic official accepted he had reason to suspect several of his colleagues during his early career in the church.

It represents the first time the cardinal has given such detailed evidence under oath about his knowledge of child abuse during this time, and appears to contrast with other accounts given in ­recent years.

Under questioning via videolink from Rome, where he manages the Vatican’s finances and is its third highest ranking official, Cardinal Pell said a child at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat, ­Victoria, told him about a Christian Brother called Edward Dowlan sometime during or after 1973. “There were one or two fleeting references … to misbehaviour by Dowlan, which I concluded might have been pedophilia activity,” Cardinal Pell told the commission.

However, he had “no specific information” about abuse. While the cardinal did not name the boy who told him this, he added: “I remembered him as a good and honest lad and I didn’t think he’d be … telling lies.”

This account contrasts with that given in other evidence to the commission. One former St Patrick’s pupil, Timothy Green, said he confronted ­Cardinal Pell in late 1974 saying “Brother Dowlan is touching ­little boys”.

“Father Pell said ‘Don’t be ridiculous’ and walked out,” Mr Green’s statement said.

Mr Green’s statement said years later he described the ­exchange in a newspaper: “Archbishop Pell is quoted as saying ‘At a distance of 28 years, I have no recollection of any such conversation. If I was approached and thought the stories plausible, I would have informed the Christian Brothers.

“Essentially, Pell denied that I had told him about Dowlan, and denied any knowledge of sexual abuse in Ballarat.”

Cardinal Pell told the ­commission that, during the 1970s other students and priests also came to him reporting “problems”, which he took to mean harsh discipline and sexual acts involving ­minors at St Patrick’s College.

Asking the school chaplain “if there’s any truth in them”, Cardinal Pell was told, “yes, there are problems ... but I think the Brothers have got the matter in hand”, the commission heard.

Dowlan was moved around several Christian Brothers schools for nearly 20 years before being convicted for abusing boys in his care, the commission has heard.

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

Cardinal Pell, who was the episcopal vicar for education but did not have direct authority over the school itself, said: “People were aware of it and they weren’t insisting that anything be done.”

During his appointment at the diocese’s Swan Hill parish, Cardinal Pell said he read a 1972 newspaper report about a priest, Monsignor John Day, who left his position following a police investigation into child sexual abuse.

The late Monsignor Day was subsequently appointed as priest to another parish in the Ballarat diocese, the commission heard.

Cardinal Pell, who said he was aware of the decision, yesterday described it as “unacceptable”, ­although he was not asked what action he took at the time. “In those days if a priest denied such activity I was strongly inclined to accept the denial,” he said.

Fourteen Ballarat child abuse victims were in Rome to watch Cardinal Pell after a heart complaint prevented him from flying to Australia.

David Ridsdale, whose uncle Gerald, a pedophile priest, is likely to be the subject of questioning at the commission today, said: “We need the hierarchy of the Vatican to stand up and take responsibility and not hide behind legal processes. Please, we don’t want to see survivors in 50 years; we want to be the last survivors”.