AUSTRALIA
The Australian
AUGUST 12, 2014
Sarah Elks
Reporter
Brisbane
THE Catholic Church did not sack a parish priest even after an internal investigation commissioned by George Pell discovered he was guilty of child sex abuse.
ABC TV’s Four Corners last night revealed the results of a 1997 church investigation into Peter Searson that concluded he had for years sexually abused girls at the parish of Doveton, outside Melbourne.
However, Searson successfully appealed to Rome the ruling by the church’s internal Independent Commissioner into Sexual Abuse, Peter O’Callaghan QC, who had been appointed by Cardinal Pell, then archbishop of Melbourne. Searson argued Mr O’Callaghan didn’t have the jurisdiction to make such a finding.
Cardinal Pell is now in charge of Vatican finances.
Four Corners reported Cardinal Pell was approached by teachers at the Holy Family School in Doveton in 1989 and in the early 1990s, pleading with him to remove Searson after repeated complaints by children, parents and other teachers.
“I didn’t do nothing; I certainly did,” Cardinal Pell told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse last year.
He denied there had been a cover-up.“No conviction was recorded for Searson on sexual misbehaviour,” he said. “There might be victims. He was convicted for cruelty. But speaking more generally, I totally reject the suggestion.”
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