AUSTRALIA
9 News
AAP
Cardinal George Pell arranged for a pedophile priest to be paid from a retirement fund just days before he was charged, documents show.
The then Melbourne archbishop had placed Father Wilfred Baker on administrative leave once advised of the child abuse allegations by the Melbourne Response independent commissioner Peter O’Callaghan in May 1997.
Mr O’Callaghan told then bishop Denis Hart, who later replaced Cardinal Pell as Melbourne archbishop, in May 1998 that Baker was likely to be charged with child sex offences, documents tendered to the child abuse royal commission show.
Priests Retirement Foundation secretary Rev Gerard Beasley told Baker that then archbishop Pell had asked the foundation to provide for the priest “as if you were a Pastor Emeritus”.
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