More than two years after the child abuse royal commission’s final report was delivered to parliament, large sections of the report containing information about Cardinal George Pell’s handling of abuse will be published on Thursday morning.
The sections have remained redacted until now due to legal action Pell was facing in relation to historical child sexual abuse allegations. There was concern the findings could prejudice jurors in those proceedings. However, Pell was released from prison in April after his conviction was quashed by the high court, which meant the redacted sections could be made public.
The attorney general, Christian Porter, confirmed the tabling of the report to parliament will occur at about 10am, and made public online shortly after.
Case study 28 of the royal commission examined Catholic church authorities in Ballarat, Victoria. The first part of those hearings were held in May 2015 and heard from a number of survivors who spoke of their abuse by Catholic clergy in Ballarat including within parishes, schools and orphanages. As a result of the commission’s investigations following that hearing, they called senior figures in the church at the time to give evidence in a second round of hearings held in December 2015.
Pell and others were to be interrogated about what they knew or suspected about abuse and what they did in response. Pell was episcopal vicar for education in the Ballarat diocese from 1973 until 1984. He was also a priest from 1978. However, after initially saying he would fly to Australia to give evidence, Pell applied to give evidence via video link due to health issues. His initial request was rejected by the royal commissioner Peter McClellan and his evidence was delayed. Pell again applied to give evidence via video link, and McClellan agreed he could give evidence by video link from the Hotel Quirinale in central Rome between 29 February and 3 March 2016 so as not to delay hearings or distress survivors further.
Pell told the commission that when a young schoolboy came to him to say Brother Edward Dowlan was abusing children, he “didn’t do anything about it” aside from tell a chaplain because he believed then that was all he had to do. He was strongly challenged on this point by McClellan, who put it to him that he should have immediately reported the allegation to the school. Pell also said investigating the paedophile priest Peter Searson was not his responsibility because he believed the Catholic Education Office and the then bishop of Ballarat, Ronald Mulkearns, were handling the allegations.
Pell also said he had limited contact with the notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale during some of the period in which Ridsdale was abusing children across several parishes. Ridsdale was convicted for abusing more than 50 children over a period of 30 years. For a time, he lived in a parish with Pell. Pell told the commission Ridsdale’s abusing was “a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me”.
In a statement issued after his evidence, Pell denied any involvement in moving paedophile priests including Ridsdale between parishes. “I never moved him anywhere,” his statement said. “I would never have condoned or participated in a decision to transfer Ridsdale in the knowledge that he had abused children, and I did not do so. I was a member of the College of Consultors for Ballarat from 1977 until I left Ballarat in 1984. Membership of the Consultors gave me no authority over Gerald Ridsdale or any other priest in Ballarat.”
The commission heard it was Pell who handed Searson a letter requesting that he resign in 1998. The commission heard the Catholic Education Office handed Pell a list of grievances against Searson long before that, in 1989. Pell believed the list, which included reports Searson had abused animals in front of children and was using children’s toilets, did not contain enough information about the situation for him to act at the time.
Pell said in the early 1970s, when he first heard allegations of priests sexually abusing children, he was “strongly inclined” to believe the priests’ version of events. During the hearings, the counsel assisting Gail Furness told Pell she did not accept Pell’s evidence that senior figures who worked alongside him who knew of the abuse deliberately didn’t tell him about it, and twice told Pell his evidence was “implausible” and “designed to deflect blame”.
Pell said he had “the deepest sympathy for the victims of abuse, their families and the community of Ballarat for what they have suffered”. “Once again, I will answer allegations and criticisms of my behaviour openly and honestly,” he said in a statement made in 2015.
Pell also gave evidence to the commission in 2014 in person as part of the royal commission’s case study 35, which examined the response to abuse by the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne. Pell was an auxiliary bishop in the Melbourne archdiocese from 1987. In 1996 he became the archbishop of Melbourne, and was the architect of the church’s Melbourne Response scheme, which handled complaints of child sexual abuse. During his evidence, Pell used an analogy of a trucking company to describe the church’s responsibility for abuse by its clergy, saying: “If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don’t think it’s appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible.” He was condemned for the comments.
Between October 1996 and March 2014, 351 complaints had been investigated under the Melbourne Response scheme. The royal commission heard from victims whose child sexual abuse claims were investigated under the scheme, and who described it as flawed and lacking compassion.
But Pell defended the scheme, saying creating the Melbourne Response showed he took the issue seriously. Pell said at that time of his appointment as archbishop there was a growing awareness of the issue of child sexual abuse committed by clergy and church personnel, prompting the Melbourne Response.
The commission’s reports are expected to reveal detail about Pell’s role in handling complaints through the scheme. The full report has long been called for by survivors and advocates of abuse, with many survivors who gave evidence to the royal commission unwell, elderly and eager to see the findings.
