On the eve of the next Royal Commission hearing in Ballarat, a new controversy has emerged with claims Cardinal George Pell is being investigated by Victoria Police for allegations of child sexual abuse.
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On Friday night, a media report accused the Cardinal of unsubstantiated allegations of sexual abuse. The report claimed he was being investigated by Victoria Police Sano taskforce for committing multiple offences against children.
Cardinal Pell has categorically denied any of the accusations and called for a public inquiry into the leak. The report claimed police have spoken to "numerous" alleged victims. The incidents are related to various unidentified victims and places in Ballarat and Melbourne. The report alleged Cardinal Pell committed multiple offences against children "by both grooming and opportunity."
The Cardinal suggested the leak was strategic and it threatened to undermine the work of the child sex abuse inquiry. In a statement released by the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, Cardinal Pell said the leak from within Victoria Police had been timed to do maximum damage to him and the Catholic Church.
It remains unknown what impacts this will have on Cardinal Pell’s testimony to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse with his testimony scheduled for February 29. He will give evidence via video link from Rome, where he now manages the Vatican's finances, after the royal commission accepted a medical report that he said was too ill to return to Australia.
The church’s response to a group of paedophile Christian Brothers who repeatedly sexually abused children over decades will be the focus of the sex abuse hearing beginning in Ballarat on Monday. Another harrowing week of evidence is anticipated as the inquiry delves into a notorious paedophile ring which operated in Ballarat in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. Some of Australia's most notorious abusers, including Gerald Ridsdale and Edward Dowlan, were part of group which saw clergy move between schools and go on to abuse generations of children. Between 1980 and 2015, 140 people made a claim of child sexual abuse against priests and religious leaders operating within the Diocese of Ballarat. Of the claims 95 per cent related to incidents alleged to have occurred from 1950 and 1989.Victoria Police has so far refused to comment.
