PELL Fixed Retirement Pay for Priest

9 News
November 24, 2015

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/11/25/11/54/pell-fixed-retirement-pay-for-priest

Cardinal George Pell arranged for a pedophile priest to be paid from a retirement fund just days before he was charged, documents show.

The then Melbourne archbishop had placed Father Wilfred Baker on administrative leave once advised of the child abuse allegations by the Melbourne Response independent commissioner Peter O'Callaghan in May 1997.

Mr O'Callaghan told then bishop Denis Hart, who later replaced Cardinal Pell as Melbourne archbishop, in May 1998 that Baker was likely to be charged with child sex offences, documents tendered to the child abuse royal commission show.

Priests Retirement Foundation secretary Rev Gerard Beasley told Baker that then archbishop Pell had asked the foundation to provide for the priest "as if you were a Pastor Emeritus".

The committee agreed to pay board and lodging costs up to $3000 a quarter for Baker, including his $150 a week rent, Rev Beasley said in a letter to Baker on July 16, 1998.

Baker was charged with child sex abuse on July 22, 1998.

He was jailed for four years in 1999 for abusing eight boys. He died in 2014 while awaiting trial for further offences.

Twenty-one people have made child sex abuse claims against Baker to the Catholic Church, covering 1960 to 1985.

The church has paid $555,000 to Baker's victims through the Melbourne Response, its claims handling process for the Melbourne archdiocese, and $475,000 as the result of three civil claims.