AUSTRALIA
The Hindu (India)
Australia’s highest ranking member of the Catholic Church has been accused at a Royal Commission hearing of knowing about child sexual abuse claims against a Victorian priest for more than 30 years.
Cardinal George Pell has come under pressure to reveal if he had covered up the abuse claims against former Catholic Church priest Gerald Ridsdale in the Victorian town of Ballarat, Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.
A Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which has heard evidence on Monday and Tuesday, was told that Pell, now a prefect for the Secretariat of the Economy in Rome, may have known about Ridsdale’s crimes years before Ridsdale first faced charges.
Gail Furness, senior counsel, told the commission that a group of priests advised Ronald Mulkearns, a Ballarat-based bishop at the time, to move Ridsdale between parishes after claims of “inappropriate behaviour” and sexual abuse against children came to light.
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