AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Oliver Milman
@olliemilman
Tuesday 19 May 2015
Cardinal George Pell was involved in the decision to move a priest who was later found to be a prolific child sex abuse offender from the Victorian parish of Mortlake, the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse heard.
The offending of Gerald Ridsdale, who has been found guilty on four occasions of more than 100 separate offences against children as young as four, was laid out in confronting detail during public hearings in Ballarat.
Pell, who supported Ridsdale during his first court appearance for child sex offences in 1993, was part of a Catholic church clerical group called the College of Consultors that decided to move Ridsdale between parishes. Pell later became the Bishop of Sydney before taking up a senior role at the Vatican.
The hearing was told that Ridsdale was discussed at a meeting of the College of Consultors in September 1982 where the minutes recorded “it had become necessary for Fr Gerald Ridsdale to move from the parish of Mortlake”.
No reason for the transfer is recorded in the minutes. Pell as always denied any knowledge of children being abused in Ballarat.
The commission heard Catholic priests involved in the sexual abuse of young children were repeatedly moved to different parishes in Victoria and sent on “treatment” trips to the US and Italy before eventually being convicted of their crimes.
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