AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
December 9, 2015
Padraic Murphy
Herald Sun
A PRIEST named as party to a conversation in which Cardinal George Pell allegedly said paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale had been abusing boys flatly denies the conversation ever took place.
Earlier this week secret witness BWE told the Child Abuse Royal Commission that in 1983 he overheard Cardinal Pell making the comment to Father Frank Madden at St Patrick’s Cathedral in Ballarat a decade before Ridsdale was first charged.
“George Pell (said) …, ‘I think Gerry’s been r — ting boys again’,” BWE said.
But Father Madden today flatly denied the claim saying he had never performed a funeral mass with Pell, where BWE claimed the conversation took place.
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