BishopAccountability.org

Pell commented about priest abuser:inquiry

By Megan Neil
Australian
December 07, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/ballarat-clergy-abuse-inquiry-resumes/story-fn3dxiwe-1227635941534

A FORMER altar boy has told an inquiry he overheard Cardinal George Pell say a Victorian priest was abusing boys again.

WITNESS BWE told the child abuse royal commission he heard Cardinal Pell, then a Ballarat priest, tell Fr Frank Madden in September 1983: "I think Gerry's been rooting boys again."

The reference is to Gerald Francis Ridsdale, who has been jailed for child sex offences against 53 victims and who is the subject of 78 abuse claims to the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.

BWE on Monday said he felt scared and stopped being an altar boy after overhearing the conversation.

Cardinal Pell's barrister Sam Duggan said the allegation was utterly false and pure fantasy, but BWE insisted it was true.

Mr Duggan also said Cardinal Pell had never used words like "Gerry has been rooting boys again", but BWE disagreed.

The commission heard another altar boy did not recall the conversation between Cardinal Pell and Fr Madden before a Ballarat funeral.

"Maybe it's just because now I understand it all, but to me that seems quite an outlandish, outrageous sort of statement that would stick in my mind," BWK said in a statement.

The inquiry heard records showed Fr Madden was in Horsham from mid-1982, although BWE said he was absolutely certain the priest was at the 1983 Ballarat funeral.

Mr Duggan said Ridsdale was working in Sydney from November 1982 and had been out of Ballarat for the better part of a decade.

It is the latest allegation involving Cardinal Pell, who will return from Rome to give evidence in Melbourne for three days from December 16.

Cardinal Pell has repeatedly rejected claims he tried to bribe a victim to keep quiet, ignored complaints and was involved in moving Ridsdale to a different parish.

Ridsdale's nephew and victim David Ridsdale has testified that when he told Cardinal Pell about the abuse in 1993 the then Melbourne bishop said: "I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet."

Mr Duggan suggested that never happened.

Mr Ridsdale said: "No, utterly; that is as clear to me as the first time my uncle forced me onto his penis. These are things that stick. They changed my life."

In a tendered statement, Mentone parish priest Rev John Thomas Walsh said Cardinal Pell spoke to him after the phone call with Mr Ridsdale.

"My strong recollection is that Bishop Pell was concerned for David Ridsdale who had been terribly affected by the abuse."

Abuse victim Timothy Green has previously testified that when he was 12 he told then Father Pell in late 1974 that Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was abusing boys at Ballarat's St Patrick's College.

"His answer to me was 'don't be so ridiculous'," Mr Green repeated on Monday.

The commission on Monday heard one of the boys Mr Green said was with him did not recall the conversation.

The inquiry also heard the Diocese of Ballarat had received 140 child sex abuse claims and paid nearly $5 million in compensation since 1980.




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