Cardinal Pell denies bribery allegations

Sky News
May 20, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/top-stories/2015/05/20/cardinal-pell-denies-bribery-allegations.html

Cardinal George Pell has denied allegations he tried to bribe a victim of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale.

David Ridsdale, the nephew of Australia's worst pedophile priest, has told a royal commission that he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse at the hands of his uncle.

He told the royal commission on Wednesday Cardinal Pell, a family friend, asked him: 'I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet.'

Mr Ridsdale said Cardinal Pell started talking about his growing family and that he may soon have to buy a car or house.

He said his response was 'f you George and everything you stand for'.

After he hung up, Mr Ridsdale said he told his sisters about the phone conversation.

'I remember saying to both my sisters: the bastard just tried to bribe me',' Mr Ridsdale told the royal commission hearing in Ballarat.

'I have never stated that Pell offered me anything specific or tangible in our conversation, only that his attempts to direct the conversation down a particular path made me extremely suspicious of his motivations and what he was insinuating.'

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan says Cardinal Pell will be required to make a statement about the allegations.

Church counsel Peter Gray SC said Cardinal Pell has publicly and repeatedly said his recollection of the conversation with Mr Ridsdale is quite different.

Cardinal Pell, now the finance chief at the Vatican, has been mentioned at the commission this week by several witnesses who claim he knew about the widespread abuse in Ballarat while he was a priest in the city in the 1970s.

One abuse victim told the commission Pell ignored him and walked out after being told a Christian Brother was molesting children.

Timothy Green, 53, said he told then Father Pell that Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was abusing boys at Ballarat's St Patrick's College in late 1974.

'I said Brother Dowlan is touching little boys,' Mr Green said on Wednesday.

'Father Pell said don't be ridiculous' and walked out.'

Mr Green, who said he was 12 or 13 when he told Cardinal Pell, was himself a victim of Dowlan.

'Father Pell didn't ask any questions. He didn't say what do you mean or how could you say that,' he said.

'He just dismissed it and walked out.

'His reaction gave me the impression that he knew about Brother Dowlan but couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it.'

Justice McClellan said he expected the commissioners would make a finding about what Cardinal Pell was told.

Another abuse victim, BAV, told the commission that after he had been abused by Ridsdale in a bedroom at the Ballarat presbytery, Cardinal Pell, who also lived there, arrived home.

'I saw the back of Father Pell but did not know if he saw me and Father Ridsdale or not,' BAV said.

Cardinal Pell has previously denied Mr Green told him about the abuse, after the claims were made in the media.

Cardinal Pell said in 2002: 'At a distance of 28 years, I have no recollection of any such conversation. If I was approached and thought the stories plausible I would have informed the Christian Brothers.'

Dowlan, 65, was in March ordered to serve at least three years of a six-year prison sentence for indecently assaulting 20 boys under his care at Victorian schools in the 1970s and 1980s.