ROME
9 News
AAP
George Pell says it would be hard to find another bishop whose actions were as “grave and inexplicable” as those of Ronald Mulkearns who knew about the crimes of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale but kept moving him from one parish to another.
In an extraordinary day of evidence to the sex abuse royal commission on Tuesday, Cardinal Pell squarely laid the blame on Bishop Mulkearns – his former mentor – for decades of cover-up which put hundreds of children at risk from Ridsdale.
As Bishop of Ballarat between 1971 and 1997, Mulkearns presided over decisions to move priests, including Ridsdale, between parishes rather than deal with child sexual abuse allegations.
Cardinal Pell told the royal commission Bishop Mulkearns deceived him, lied to him and described his former boss’s actions as “reprehensible” and “absolutely extraordinary.”
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