Cardinal George Pell has said he will not be drawn into responding to criticism by the counsel assisting the royal commission on child sexual abuse.
A submission from Gail Furness SC and Stephen Free, the counsel, argued that based on the cardinal’s’s evidence to the commission, as well as evidence from Catholic Education Office staff and child sexual abuse victims, Pell should have taken stronger action against a paedophile priest, Peter Searson.
On Tuesday Pell’s office in Rome said: “The cardinal has already responded directly to counsel assisting’s submissions in the written submissions published under his name on the royal commission website. As the royal commission has not yet made findings in these case studies, it is not appropriate, at this time, for parties to comment.”
Searson was the parish priest of Doveton, south-east of Melbourne, from 1984 until 1997. Pell, now the Vatican’s financial controller in Rome, was at the time auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Melbourne and oversaw positions such as Searson’s.
The commission has previously heard Searson abused children in parishes and schools across three districts over more than a decade, and displayed strange behaviours such as animal cruelty and carrying a gun to school.
During his evidence before the commission in March, Pell said investigating Searson was not his responsibility because he believed the Catholic Education Office and the Bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, were handling the allegations.
But in their response to Pell’s evidence published on Monday, Free and Furness wrote that it should have been Pell’s responsibility to take such action to remove Searson. The commission previously heard that Pell had been informed by parish staff of Searson’s behaviour, and that in 1989, a number of staff from the Holy Family parish and school in Doveton approached Pell about Searson’s conduct, including his harassment of children.
Pell’s submissions published by the commission maintained he did not have enough evidence about Searson’s behaviour to take action at the time.
“Considering the attention given to Searson and the issues in Doveton during Cardinal Pell’s evidence, one might be forgiven for thinking that his involvement with Searson was extensive,” his submission said.
“It was not. The most significant interaction Bishop Pell had with Searson was when he met with a delegation of teachers in 1989 ... a meeting organised by a representative of a teachers’ union so that the teachers could air their workplace grievances about Searson.
“At some stage prior to the meeting, a representative from the Catholic Education Office mentioned to Bishop Pell that there had been an historical allegation of ‘sexual misconduct’ against Searson, but did not elaborate and gave Bishop Pell to understand that the allegation could not be sustained.”
Pell also said Catholic Education Office staff deliberately kept information about the extent of Searson’s abusing from him because they feared if Pell found out, he would take strong action against Searson.
Furness and Free urged the commission to reject this evidence.
“It is submitted that the commission should reject Cardinal Pell’s evidence that officers of the CEO intentionally deceived him and did so for the reasons suggested by Cardinal Pell,” their submission read.
Searson died in 2009 without facing charges.
