AUSTRALIA
9 News
The man who is now Australia’s most senior Catholic failed to remove an alleged pedophile priest who teachers said posed a danger to children at a Melbourne primary school, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Cardinal George Pell, who was then a bishop, was told in the early 1990s about Father Peter Searson, who was suspected of sexual molestation and seen visiting the boys toilets several times a day, the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into abuse in religious organisations has heard.
A group of teachers from Holy Family school at Doveton visited Pell, who was then bishop for the southern area of Melbourne, to make the complaint, one former teacher Carmel Rafferty told the inquiry on Wednesday.
“The principal authorised the three year five and six teachers to make a deputation to the area bishop for the south eastern area at the time, who was Bishop Pell, to advise him of danger to children and the need to remove the priest,” she said.
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