AUSTRALIA
The Telegraph (UK)
By AFP 21 May 2015
Australia’s former top Catholic cleric, now Pope Francis’ finance chief, has denied trying to bribe a victim of a paedophile priest to keep quiet as an inquiry heard of horrifying abuse.
Cardinal George Pell spoke out on Thursday as abuse survivors demanded he return to Australia to give evidence to a royal commission on the allegations.
David Ridsdale, who was abused from age 11 by his uncle Gerald Ridsdale, a notorious paedophile priest now in jail, told the commission on Wednesday that he confided in family friend Cardinal Pell about the sex assaults in 1993.
He alleged that Cardinal Pell, who was appointed by Pope Francis in February 2014 to make the Vatican’s finances more transparent, went on to ask what it would cost to buy his silence.
The cardinal was also accused of helping to move the disgraced priest between parishes.
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