AUSTRALIA
ABC News
George Pell: The surf club allegation
7.30 BY LOUISE MILLIGAN AND ANDY BURNS
UPDATED WED JUL 27
One of the earliest complaints against Cardinal George Pell being investigated by Victoria Police goes back to the summer of 1978-79 when he was Episcopal Vicar for Education in the Ballarat diocese.
One of the schools he was responsible for was the now notorious St Alipius primary school, where the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Abuse has heard a ring of paedophile Christian Brothers abused many children.
Whilst there is absolutely no suggestion that George Pell was involved in that paedophile ring, former St Alipius students Lyndon Monument and Damian Dignan allege that the Cardinal repeatedly touched their genitals and anuses while playing a game in Ballarat’s Eureka pool, where he would throw them and other boys up into the air.
“I’m disgusted, bitter, angry. I just want him to come back and look me in the eye,” Mr Monument told 7.30.
Many of the former St Alipius pupils who have spoken to 7.30 say he was often seen at the school throughout the 1970s.
“He was always like the godly figure we had to look up to, and we’d even get told in class, ‘Brush your hair and tuck yourself in,'” Mr Monument said.
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