BishopAccountability.org

Ex-teachers speak about Vic church abuse

9 News
November 23, 2015

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/11/23/12/49/senior-church-figures-at-vic-abuse-inquiry

Teachers tried to get the Catholic Church to act against a suspected Melbourne pedophile priest including taking their concerns to then bishop George Pell, a royal commission will hear.

The child abuse royal commission is investigating how church authorities dealt with abusers who operated in the Holy Family Parish in Doveton and elsewhere in the Archdiocese of Melbourne for decades.

Former Holy Family Primary School principal Graeme Sleeman and teacher Carmel Rafferty raised concerns about Doveton parish priest Father Peter Searson, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry heard in 2013.

Ms Rafferty told the inquiry a group of teachers visited Cardinal Pell, who was then bishop for Melbourne's southern area, in 1991 to tell him about Searson, who was suspected of sexual molestation and seen visiting the boys' toilets several times a day.

Cardinal Pell told the Victorian inquiry when he raised the issue he was told the Catholic Education Office was investigating and was sent back to tell Searson to follow protocols correctly.

Two police investigations into the priest were inconclusive and an education office review was "still unable to pin anything on the man", Cardinal Pell said.

"He was not a pleasant man. He denied everything and anything. In the Searson matter I certainly acted on that, and this is one case where we consistently tried to do the right thing."

Searson died in 2009 and was never convicted of sexual offences, although Cardinal Pell told the inquiry "there might be victims". Searson was placed on a six-month good behaviour bond in 1997 for physically assaulting an altar boy.

Ms Rafferty and Mr Sleeman, who resigned as Holy Family Primary School principal in 1986 because nothing was done about Searson, will give evidence to the royal commission's public hearing into abuse in Doveton and the Melbourne archdiocese.

The public hearing, which begins in Melbourne on Tuesday, will also hear from Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart, two bishops and representatives of the Catholic Education Office.

Cardinal Pell, now the Vatican's financial chief, will return from Rome to give his evidence in the week of December 14.

 




.


Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.