AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
November 25, 2015
Beau Donelly
Cardinal George Pell lobbied for payments to be made to a paedophile priest days before he was charged with sex offences, documents tendered to the child abuse royal commission show.
In May 1998, the Catholic Church’s independent commissioner Peter O’Callaghan, QC, informed then Bishop Denis Hart that Gladston Park priest Wilfred “Billy” Baker was likely to be charged.
Then archbishop George Pell had already put Baker on administrative leave while police investigated allegations of child abuse against him.
In a July 1998 letter the Priests Retirement Foundation told Baker that Pell had asked that he be provided for as if he were a “Pastor Emeritus”. The letter confirmed payments to Baker of up to $12,000 a year had been approved for board and lodging.
Six days later Baker was charged with child sex abuse offences. He was jailed the following year for abusing eight young boys over two decades. He died in 2014 while facing new charges against him.
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