AUSTRALIA
The Guardian
Oliver Milman in Melbourne and Stephanie Kirchgaessner in Rome
Wednesday 20 May 2015
A senior Vatican official, who is also Australia’s highest ranking cleric, has been accused of attempting to bribe a victim of child sex abuse to keep quiet about the molestation he suffered from a paedophile Catholic priest.
The victim, David Ridsdale, told an Australian royal commission into child sexual abuse that he called Cardinal George Pell in 1993 to report being abused by his uncle Gerald Ridsdale, a former priest who is in prison after committing more than 130 offences against children as young as four between the 1960s and 1980s.
David Ridsdale said Pell had a “terse” response to being told of the abuse, before offering him money to buy his silence.
“George then began to talk about my growing family and my need to take care of their needs,” Ridsdale told the royal commission hearing. “He mentioned how I would soon have to buy a car or house for my family.
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