AUSTRALIA
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Cardinal George Pell tried to bribe an abuse victim, the royal commission has heard.
David Ridsdale, the nephew and victim of Australia’s pedophile priest Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale, says he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse.
He told the royal commission on Wednesday Cardinal Pell, a family friend, asked him: “I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.”
Cardinal Pell told a boy “don’t be ridiculous” when told a Christian Brother was molesting children, the abuse royal commission has also heard.
Cardinal Pell has previously denied being told about the abuse but will have to make a statement to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about what he knew.
Timothy Green, 53, said he told then Father Pell that Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was abusing boys at Ballarat’s St Patrick’s College in late 1974.
“I said Brother Dowlan is touching little boys,” Mr Green told a commission hearing in Ballarat. “Father Pell said ‘don’t be ridiculous’ and walked out,” Mr Green said.
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