Cardinal testifies in sex abuse probe
ROME — One of Pope Francis’ top advisers acknowledged he had heard that an Australian Catholic school teacher who serially abused students might be involved in “pedophilia activity” in the 1970s, but said he had no idea how rampant clergy abuse was at the time, during an extraordinary public hearing of an Australian investigative commission just a few blocks from the Vatican.
Australian Cardinal George Pell, who testified via videolink from Rome to the Royal Commission in Sydney from Sunday night to early this morning, also conceded that the Catholic Church “has made enormous mistakes” in allowing thousands of children to be raped and molested by priests.
Two dozen Australian abuse survivors and their companions traveled across the globe to witness Pell’s testimony in a Rome hotel’s conference room, a significant show of accountability in the church’s long-running abuse saga.
And in a case of art imitating life, the testimony played out just hours before “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s investigation into decades of priestly rape of children and systematic cover-up by the Catholic Church, won Best Picture at the Academy Awards.
“I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Pell said as the hearing began. “The church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those.” He said the church had “mucked things up and let people down” and for too long had dismissed credible abuse allegations “in absolutely scandalous circumstances.”
The lead counsel assisting the commission, Gail Furness, questioned Pell about current Vatican efforts to address the crisis, as well as Pell’s past in Australia, where he is accused of ignoring warnings when he was an assistant priest about Christian Brother Edward Dowlan, a teacher at St. Patrick’s College in the Australian city of Ballarat. The deeply Catholic city has been devastated by disclosures about the huge number of abuse victims there, scores of whom killed themselves.
Pell, now Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, has repeatedly denied allegations that he ignored warnings decades ago that Dowlan was abusing students. Under questioning from Furness, Pell said he had heard “one or two fleeting references” to “misbehavior” by Dowlan in the 1970s “which I concluded might have been pedophilia activity.”
But Pell said he had not known victims’ names, that there were large numbers of victims or that Dowlan’s offending was general knowledge at the school.
Dowlan was sentenced to six years in prison last year for abusing 20 boys.
Pell also testified that he had been aware of a Christian Brother named Leo Fitzgerald who swam naked with students and said he had been told by parishioners that Fitzgerald also had a habit of kissing boys. But Pell said he had not believed the kissing to be sexual.
Pell’s acknowledgment that he knew about such behavior is the closest he has publicly come to stating that he had even tangential awareness of the scandal playing out in Ballarat, where at the time he was in no position of church authority. His concession came as Furness presented evidence that many people around Pell knew about the abuse.
“The sexual offending by Christian Brothers at St. Alipius school and St. Pat’s school was known by a significant number in the community — would you agree with that?” Furness asked Pell.
“I would agree that it was known to all the people whom you’ve mentioned, and they do constitute a significant number,” Pell replied.
The commission is investigating how Pell dealt with abuse allegations as a priest, educator and adviser to former Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns, as well as how the Melbourne archdiocese responded to allegations of abuse, including when Pell served as a Melbourne auxiliary bishop.
