ROME
The Australian
AAP
Cardinal George Pell says he would have believed a priest who denied sexually abusing children in the early 1970s.
Cardinal Pell said it was a great scandal when Monsignor John Day was accused in 1971 and 1972 of indecently assaulting children while the parish priest in Mildura.
Cardinal Pell, who as an assistant priest in the Swan Hill parish at the time, said he heard some gossip about Monsignor Day being accused of some sort of pedophilia activity.
“I must say in those days if a priest denied such activity I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial,” Cardinal Pell told the child abuse royal commission from Rome.
Cardinal Pell, who was overseas from 1963 until 1971, said the gossip he heard likely came from fellow priests.
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