In Australia, Cardinal George Pell, convicted and later acquitted of rape, was aware of pedophile crimes committed among the Australian clergy in the 1970s, according to the findings of an investigation released on Thursday.
The Royal Commission worked for five years on institutional responses to the crimes of pedophilia in Australia, before rendering damning conclusions in 2017. But the parts relating to the ex-secretary of the Economy of the Holy See had been kept secret so as not to influence jurors in the legal proceedings relating to pedophile acts of which he was directly accused.
The question of a stay at the campsite
Sentenced in 2019 to six years in prison for rape and sexual assault dating back to the 1990s, George Pell, 78, was finally acquitted on appeal, for the benefit of the doubt, in April by the highest Australian court. This allowed the revelation of the conclusions of the Royal Commission hitherto kept secret.
She claims that George Pell had questioned himself since 1973, when he was a priest in the rural diocese of Ballarat (South-East), about leaving Gerald Ridsdale, a priest today in prison for multiple attacks pedophiles, take boys camping for several days. "At that time, the question of pedophile assaults was on his radars," we can read in the report.
Avoid "gossip"
"We are also convinced that in 1973 Cardinal Pell was not only aware of the pedophile attacks committed by the clergy but that he had also considered measures to avoid situations liable to generate gossip about them. "
George Pell, who lived with Gerald Ridsdale in 1973 and supported him in 1993 when he first appeared in court, has always said that he has no recollection of complaints at Ballarat. Gerald Ridsdale was convicted of assaulting 50 young boys between 1960 and 1980. In a statement, George Pell said Thursday "surprised by some of the Royal Commission claims" which "are not supported by any evidence". He added that many of those present at the 1977 meeting had learned "much later" of Ridsdale's misdeeds.
4,000 alleged victims in Australia
The Commission also found that Pell should have asked for the dismissal of another priest, Peter Searson, when, as auxiliary bishop of Melbourne, in 1989 he received a list of complaints from teachers. He was the subject of numerous complaints between the 1970s and 1990s for pedophilia, but also for his behavior "unpleasant, strange, aggressive and violent", according to the commission.
George Pell acknowledged that he could have been "a little more insistent" with the Archbishop regarding Searson. But, for the commission it was "up to Pell" to act in 1989, which he did only in 1997, when he became archbishop of Melbourne. Searson pleaded guilty to assaulting a child that year, but was never prosecuted for pedophilia. He died in 2009.
When the work of the Royal Commission was launched in 2012, George Pell, then Archbishop of Sydney, considered "exaggerated" the extent of the alleged abuses within the Church. In the end, the Commission identified more than 4,000 alleged victims of pedophile acts committed within religious institutions. She estimated that 7% of Australian Catholic clerics had been the subject of charges of sexual abuse of children between 1950 and 2010, without this leading to investigations.
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