Cardinal Pell Counsel Claim Case against "Has Not Been Made" As Written Submissions Are Published

By Mark Brolly
The Tablet
October 31, 2016

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/6337/0/cardinal-pell-counsel-claim-case-against-has-not-been-made-as-written-submissions-are-published-


Cardinal George Pell has been criticised by counsel assisting Australia's Royal Commission over his part in the Catholic Church's response to abuse by clergy and religious in his home town of Ballarat, when he was a consultor to the bishop, and in Melbourne, where he was an auxiliary bishop.

On 31 October, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published written submissions for its public hearings into the response of the Church to allegations of abuse against clergy and religious in the two Victorian cities - including those of counsel assisting the Commission and the Cardinal.

Cardinal Pell maintained in his submissions that he could not be subject to adverse findings by the Commission. In his Ballarat submission, the Cardinal's counsel, Sam Duggan, concluded that the Royal Commission could not be "comfortably satisfied" that any one of the allegations made against Cardinal Pell had been made. In his submission on the response of the Cardinal when an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne to the case of Fr Peter Searson, parish priest of Holy Family in Doveton, Mr Duggan concluded that "there is no basis for making adverse findings against Bishop Pell, as he then was, with respect to his time in Melbourne as an Auxiliary Bishop".

"George Pell may now be a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, and he accepts by virtue of that position that he is subjected to greater scrutiny than others," Duggan wrote. "But that does not mean that his involvement in historical events should be inflated or exaggerated because of the position he now holds, nor should the Royal Commission more readily make findings against him because of his title, as opposed to his actual involvement. It is submitted that consistent with the principle of even-handed justice, Cardinal Pell should be treated with the same level of fairness as any other person involved in the matters being considered by the Royal Commission."

Counsel Assisting the Commission, Ms Gail Furness SC and Mr Angus Stewart SC, wrote that in the case of convicted former priest Gerald Ridsdale in the Ballarat diocese, "the conduct of any consultor who agreed to move Ridsdale, or indeed any priest, with knowledge of allegations of child sexual abuse made against them, is unacceptable". But they said there was insufficient evidence that in a telephone conversation with Ridsdale's nephew David in February 1993 that then Bishop Pell sought to bribe Ridsdale to prevent him from going to the police or from going public with allegations against his uncle.

On the Searson case, Furness and another counsel assisting, Mr Stephen Free, wrote that: "The matters known to Cardinal Pell on his own evidence ... were sufficient that he ought reasonably have concluded that more serious action needed to be taken in relation to Searson. One option was for Searson to be removed or suspended as parish priest.

"His failure to take any such action meant that Cardinal Pell, like other senior officials in the Archdiocese before and after him, missed an important opportunity to recognise and deal with the serious risks posed by Searson. Cardinal Pell and other senior Archdiocesan officials failed to exercise proper care for the children of Doveton."

The next public sitting of Commission will be on 16 November in Sydney to hear evidence from survivors of child sexual abuse by clergy and lay people involved or associated with the Anglican Diocese of Newcastle.