AUSTRALIA
The Australian
AAP
DECEMBER 7, 2015
CARDINAL George Pell said he believed a priest had been abusing boys again, a former altar boy has told an inquiry.
BALLARAT-BORN BWE has told the child abuse royal commission he overheard a conversation between Cardinal Pell, then a Ballarat priest, and Fr Frank Madden before a funeral in September 1983.
He said Cardinal Pell commented to Fr Madden about Gerald Francis Ridsdale: “I think Gerry’s been rooting boys again”.
BWE said he told his mother in 1984 or 1985 that he overheard Cardinal Pell confirm, more or less, that Ridsdale was still having sex with boys.
“She said to me ‘don’t be ridiculous’,” BWE told the commission on Monday.
BWE stopped being an altar boy towards the end of 1983, after overhearing the conversation.
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