AUSTRALIA
ABC News
By Sarah Farnsworth
Cardinal George Pell was overheard in the 1980s discussing the sexual abuse of boys at the hands of convicted paedophile Gerald Ridsdale, a royal commission has been told.
The explosive allegations about what Australia’s most senior Catholic knew of abuse by priests in the Ballarat diocese before he became the Archbishop of Melbourne was aired at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
A man, referred to as BWE during the hearing, told the inquiry he overhead a conversation between Father Frank Madden and then-auxilary priest George Pell at St Patricks Cathedral in 1983.
He said Father Madden asked: “How are things going down your way?”
He said Cardinal Pell replied: “I think Gerry has been rooting young boys again.”
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