Cardinal George Pell has expressed surprise at some of the views about his actions after being severely criticised by the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Pell says the Commission’s views “are not supported by the evidence”. The Commission’s findings were made public in 2017. However, a court redacted the report Read more
There was a catastrophic failure of leadership in the Catholic Diocese of Ballarat’s handling of clergy child sex abuse, says Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse. The Commission’s report says a culture of secrecy and failures in the church’s structure led to children being abused across the diocese over a number of decades. Read more
Ballarat bishop Ronald Mulkearns multimillion-dollar estate will be used to help victims of abuse, the Catholic diocese has said. Mulkearns, who died in April, was blamed for allowing paedophile priests to continue to operate in Victoria. The late bishop left a reported $2.1m to be used by the current bishop of Ballarat for the benefit Read more
Ten victims of a paedophile Australian priest have started proceedings in the Victorian Supreme Court against the retired Bishop of Ballarat. They accuse Bishop Ronal Mulkearns and the Diocese of Ballarat of negligence for allegedly failing to protect them and other victims, despite being aware of complaints against Fr Gerard Ridsdale. Ridsdale was convicted in Read more