Child abuse royal commission: George Pell 'crestfallen' after call with abuse victim, priest John Walshe says

By Danny Morgan
ABC News
December 15, 2015

http://tinyurl.com/jx2e76l

Father Walshe said he could not get over "how poorly" Cardinal Pell looked when he visited him in Rome.

Bishop Ronald Mulkearns is accused if failing to protect child abuse victims from a paedophile priest.

A Catholic priest has backed Cardinal George Pell's recollections of a 1993 telephone call where he allegedly offered to buy the silence of a sexual abuse victim.

In the phone call, Cardinal Pell and the victim, David Ridsdale, discussed the fact that Mr Ridsdale had been sexually abused by his uncle, Father Gerald Ridsdale.

In May, Mr Ridsdale told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse the conversation ended acrimoniously after Cardinal Pell allegedly said: "I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet."

Cardinal Pell denies ever trying to bribe Mr Ridsdale and rejected the suggestion the phone call ended acrimoniously.

Father John Walshe was living with Cardinal Pell in 1993.

He told the royal commission he remembered Bishop Pell, as he was known then, coming out of an office after the phone call.

"When he came back from his phone call I just saw this crestfallen look... he looked grey, that ashen look," Father Walshe said.

"When you have known the bishop for a while, the look that he has when he is angry or agitated is a very different look.

"He gets pursed lips and almost this white ring around the lips if he is upset, you read the signs, this was a completely different reaction."

Father Walshe told the commission Cardinal Pell's legal team asked him last month to make a statement to the commission about the 1993 phone call.

The commission has now called on Cardinal Pell's legal team to produce documents and emails relating to the drafting of Father Walshe's statement.

Father Walshe said he visited Cardinal Pell in Rome last month, but they did not discuss the phone call.

He said at the time, the Cardinal's appointment to appear at the royal commission seemed to be weighing heavily on him.

Last week the commission was told Cardinal Pell could not attend due to ill health.

"I couldn't get over how poorly he looked when I saw him last month," Father Walshe said.

"He'd put on a lot of weight, he is not moving very well and I just thought his general demeanour was very grey."

The former bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, has trouble sleeping at night because of his failure to stop paedophile priests preying on children in his diocese, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse has heard.

Father John McKinnon said Bishop Mulkearns was profoundly sorry for failing to protect children.

"He says he still struggles to sleep of a night," Father McKinnon said.

Father McKinnon said the retired bishop could not remember specific details about the time.

"He didn't remember details. But he was profoundly sorry for what he'd done," Father McKinnon said.

Bishop Mulkearns will not appear at the child abuse royal commission due to ill health.

The hearing was told Bishop Mulkearns received numerous complaints about priests molesting children across western Victoria in the 1970s, '80s and '90s.

He kept the complaints secret and moved offenders to other parishes where a number continued to offend, the commission was told.

In yesterday's hearing, Father McKinnon said he was not aware of the paedophilia problem until the late 1980s and did not question decisions made by Bishop Mulkearns.

He said the need to remain celibate led to a level of immaturity within the priesthood, which meant priests advising the bishop were not sensitive to the possibility child abuse was the reason some colleagues were being moved.