AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
May 21, 2015
Nick Toscano and Jane Lee
Cardinal George Pell has strongly denied being involved in an alleged sex abuse cover-up within the Catholic church after a royal commission heard he tried to bribe a victim to keep quiet.
In a statement released on Wednesday night, Cardinal Pell renewed his rejection of claims that he helped move disgraced paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale between parishes and tried to pay one of his victims to remain silent.
He also denied ignoring another victim’s claim that a now-convicted sex offender was abusing children at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat.
Royal commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said on Wednesday that Cardinal Pell would be required to respond to the allegations.
Cardinal Pell, now finance chief at the Vatican, chose to release a statement online later that night saying he had already addressed many of the claims levelled against him in a Victorian parliamentary inquiry in 2013, and he stood by those statements.
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