AUSTRALIA
Courier Mail
AAP
A former altar boy has told an inquiry he overheard Cardinal George Pell say a Victorian priest was abusing boys again.
Witness BWE told the child abuse royal commission he heard Cardinal Pell, then a Ballarat priest, tell Fr Frank Madden in September 1983: “I think Gerry’s been rooting boys again.”
The reference is to Gerald Francis Ridsdale, who has been jailed for child sex offences against 53 victims and who is the subject of 78 abuse claims to the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat.
BWE on Monday said he felt scared and stopped being an altar boy after overhearing the conversation.
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