Cardinal George Pell admitted that he did not act on a complain made by a boy in 1974 that Brother Edward Dowlan was “misbehaving” with students at St Patrick’s College in Ballarat.
Dowlan, who has since changed his name to Ted Bales, was jailed last year for abusing boys in the 1970s and ’80s.
“With the experience of 40 years later, certainly I would agree that I should have done more,” Pell told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse in Sydney via video link from Rome.
The cardinal has consistently denied any wrongdoing during his time in the town of Ballarat and the city of Melbourne in the 1970s and 1980s when pedophile priests abused dozens of children.
In his testimony on Thursday, Pell claimed that at least two archbishops deceived him by not revealing what was happening during a period of “crimes and cover-ups.”
The prelate said that “reading the transcripts of the way the victims suffered” was the toughest part of his four days of testimony.
The 74-year old cardinal admitted that he should have followed up on the complaint about Dowlan.
“People had different attitudes then…and the boy wasn’t asking me to do anything about it,” Pell said.
After his testimony, Pell said he didn’t think the hearing in Rome will hurt his reputation. “This event might do a little bit of good in Europe,” he said.
The cardinal said he was tired but satisfied he had contributed to a process of healing and to prevent a repetition of the tragedy of child sex abuse at the hands of the clergy in Australia.
“All of the leadership of the church in Australia is committed to avoiding any repetition of the terrible history of the past and to try to make things better,” he said.
A group of abuse survivors who traveled to Rome to witness the testimony said they did not believe Pell.
“We feel we have been deceived and lied to,” the group said in a statement. “We feel George has not been honest nor truthful. George will have to live with this chosen course,” the group added.
Australia ordered the Royal Commission in 2012 after a decade of growing pressure to investigate allegations of widespread pedophilia.
It has spoken to almost 5,000 survivors and heard claims of abuse involving churches, orphanages, community and youth groups and schools.
Sources
The Telegraph
news.com.au
The Sydney Morning Herald
BBC
Image: Getty Images/BBC