Cardinal George Pell told abuse victim not to be ‘ridiculous’

By Tessa Akerman
Australian
May 20, 2015

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/in-depth/cardinal-george-pell-told-abuse-victim-not-to-be-ridiculous/story-fngburq5-1227361447492

Cardinal George Pell meets with Pope Francis in 2013.

Cardinal George Pell tried to bribe a victim of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale to keep quiet and dismissed another abuse victim’s complaint as ridiculous, the royal commission has heard.

The Vatican’s finance chief will again have to answer to the sex abuse royal commission after David Ridsdale, the nephew of Australia’s worst pedophile priest, said he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse at the hands of his uncle.

David Ridsdale, the nephew of Australia’s worst pedophile priest, says he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse at the hands of his uncle.

He told the royal commission today that Cardinal Pell, a family friend, asked him in a phone call: “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 their 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.”

Cardinal Pell has previously denied Mr Ridsdale’s claims of bribery.

The former Sydney archbishop has been mentioned at the commission this week by several witnesses who say he knew - or at the least suggest he might have known - about the widespread abuse in Ballarat while he was a senior priest in the city in the 1970s. Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan says Cardinal Pell will be required to answer the allegations in a statement.

“These are significant and serious questions,” Justice McClellan told church counsel Peter Gray SC.

Justice 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.

‘Don’t be ridiculous’

One victim says he told Cardinal Pell about boys being abused at a Victorian Catholic school but that he told him not to be “ridiculous and walked off’’.

Giving evidence at the commission earlier today, Timothy Green, 53, said that he told then Father Pell in 1974 that something had to be done about Christian Brother Edward Dowlan touching boys at St Patrick’s College.

“I said Brother Dowlan is touching little boys,” Mr Green told the commission. “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 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.”

Cardinal Pell is a former Archbishop of Melbourne and Sydney and is currently a senior figure at the Vatican in Rome where he is Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy.

Cardinal Pell is also expected to be asked to provide a statement to the Royal Commission about Mr Green’s claim. Cardinal Pell has previously denied Mr Green’s account when it was made at the trial of Brother Dowlan.

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, who changed his name to Ted Bales to avoid the publicity of being associated with other convicted Ballarat clergy pedophiles, served five years in jail in the 1990s for historical child sex offences. 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.

Justice McClellan said the commissioners expect to make a finding about what Cardinal Pell was told, as it goes to how the church responded to the allegations. “I anticipate that we’ll be asked to make findings about what he has to say.”

Mr Gray SC, representing witnesses from the Catholic Church, said when Cardinal Pell is asked to make a statement “he will certainly do so”.

“Cardinal Pell, as Mr Green has already noted in his statement has a different recollection; Mr Green has acknowledged that, and that no doubt will be what the Cardinal says,” Justice McClellan said.

Another Ballarat victim, BAV, told the commission that after Father Ridsdale has abused him in a bedroom at the 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.

BAV told the commission that the Catholic Church’s handling of child sex abuse is in some ways worse than the actual abuse.

The victim told the hearing there is not enough support and understanding for victims, with men abused as children at Catholic institutions still committing suicide.

“I believe the church’s handling of the abuse has in some ways been worse than the initial sexual abuse that occurred,” the commission heard.

“The abuse might be historical but suicides by victims of sexual assault are still going and is still happening.”

BAV was abused by convicted pedophiles Father Ridsdale and Brother Robert Charles Best.

Two brothers and a cousin committed suicide after they were also abused, he said.

BAV said five men in his class at Ballarat’s St Alipius primary school had committed suicide and he knew of an additional nine men who went to the school who had also died.

“I have been and continue to be impacted by the grief and loss of losing other victims of Brother Best to suicide, some of them were my family, brothers and cousins.”

BAV said he knew of other survivors in Ballarat who had issues with alcohol and drug abuse and depression.

“I believe there is not enough understanding of the impact of child sexual abuse and there is inadequate support and services provided to victims of child sexual assault.”

He said there should be compensation or some form of pension paid to victims of child sexual assault.

Gordon Hill, 72, told the commission he was sexually and physically abused at Ballarat’s St Joseph’s Home in what he called horror rooms and dungeons.

He said he was subjected to electric shock therapy when the nuns wanted to find out if he had told anyone of his abuse, after he was found in a local hospital.

“It was like some sort of electric shock therapy,” he said after travelling 3000km from Western Australia to read his statement to the commission hearing in Ballarat.

“They wanted to know what I had told them at the hospital.”

Mr Hill said the nuns at the home would thrash him and he was abused by three priests, including by one in a confessional box while parishioners gave their confessions.

“If I made a noise as I was sitting beneath the priest’s bench in the confessional box he would whack me across the face to shut me up,” Mr Hill said.

“If any Catholics had known what was going on they would have been horrified.”

A lawyer for the Sisters of Nazareth, who administered St Joseph’s Home, said they had only recently received his statement and Mr Hill had so far chosen not to contact the sisters.

The hearing continues.