Cardinal George Pell is under pressure to appear in person at a hearing of Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in his home town, Ballarat.
The Chairman of the Commission, Mr Justice Peter McClellan, confirmed that Cardinal Pell would be asked to provide a statement about his responses to victims of abuse in the Victorian goldfields city and warned the Church that the Commission would make findings even if the Church persisted with its stance of not cross-examining survivors of abuse.
Survivors said the cardinal – now Prefect of the Vatican's Secretariat for the Economy, but formerly Archbishop of Melbourne (1996-2001) and Sydney (2001-14) – should appear at the commission in person, especially after it was revealed that he had visited his old school, St Patrick's College in Ballarat, during a private visit to Australia several weeks ago. St Patrick's College is one of several Catholic institutions in Ballarat where abuse occurred that are the focus of this hearing.
This week the commission heard from Gerald Ridsdale, a convicted clerical abuser jailed in 1994. Ridsdale and Pell lived in the Ballarat East presbytery together for about a year in the early 1970s but Ridsdale told the commission on Thursday he did not tell Pell about his behaviour with children.
Gerald Ridsdale's nephew David alleged on day two of the hearing, 20 May, that then-Bishop Pell had asked in 1993 what it would take to keep him quiet about being abused by his uncle – an allegation Cardinal Pell has denied – a church lawyer, Peter Gray SC, pointed out that the cardinal “has publicly and repeatedly said that his recollection of that conversation is quite different. If and when the commission asks the cardinal to provide a statement, which we assume will happen, I expect that he will say the same thing”.
If the cardinal testifies, it would be his third appearance at the Royal Commission. In March last year, he appeared in person in Sydney, shortly before his departure for Rome; and in August, he appeared by video link from Rome when the Commission was conducting a hearing in Melbourne. In 2013, Cardinal Pell also appeared in person at the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into the Handling of Child Abuse by Religious and other Non-Government Organisations.
In his statement on 20 May, Cardinal Pell said: “I never moved Ridsdale out of Mortlake Parish. I never moved him anywhere. I would never have condoned or participated in a decision to transfer Ridsdale in the knowledge that he had abused children, and I did not do so. I was a member of the College of Consultors for Ballarat from 1977 until I left Ballarat in 1984. Membership of the Consultors gave me no authority over Gerald Ridsdale or any other priest in Ballarat.”
Cardinal Pell reiterated that he would appear in person before the commission if required, in a letter to the Justice McClellan on Tuesday night. "Without wanting to pre-empt the Royal Commission in any way I want to make it absolutely clear that I am willing to give evidence should the commission request this, be it by statement, appearance by video link, or by attending personally."
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