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.

"That failure led to the suffering and often irreparable harm to children, their families and the wider community."

The Commission found that the Church did not act in the children's interests, which meant the abuse situation the children were in continued.

The abuse could have been avoided if the Church had acted in the interests of children.

Three public hearings into the Ballarat situation looked at the effect of child sexual abuse on an entire town.

They revealed the extent of child sex abuse across parishes, schools and homes.

Ninety per cent of the 140 abuse complaints reported to the diocese related to seven priests.

Over half the complaints concerned Gerald Ridsdale.

He held 16 appointments over his 29-year career as a priest.

His crimes were detailed in over 100 pages of the report.

They were spread across western Victoria where he was given 16 appointments over a period of 29 years.

The report says the bishop at the time, Ronald Mulkearns, knew of Ridsdale's abuse as early as 1975.

Hundreds of children were molested while Mulkearns was bishop.

He moved priests between parishes as rumours of their offending grew.

The commissioners found the response of the Diocese to complaints and concerns about different priests "was remarkably and disturbingly similar".

The Christian Brothers also come under fire in the report.

The religious order operated six schools in Ballarat and Warrnambool.

Four of the St Alipius boys school's Brothers and Ridsdale, who was their chaplain, were accused of sexually assaulting children.

All but one, who died before charges could be laid, have been convicted.

The Commissioners found the Brothers' response to complaints was "grossly inadequate".

They say they "completely failed … to protect the most vulnerable children in their care", operating within a structure "without checks and balances".

"On some occasions, the response to allegations or reports of Christian Brothers conducting themselves in a sexually inappropriate manner with children was dismissive," the Commissioners say.

One of the victims said it was a travesty that no individual had been charged with criminal negligence for the abuse committed in Ballarat.

"You know, it's basically a crime against humanity ...They're actually the criminals, not us, and this report shows that they did know, and they did cover up the crimes and hopefully they're liable and put in jail like they should be."

He said some of his classmates committed suicide to end their suffering.

Justin Driscoll, the Vicar General of the Ballarat Diocese, says the church accepted the findings.

Source

• ABC News
• Herald Sun
• Image: The Courier

Abuse victims have called on Cardinal Pell to give evidence to the inquiry to answer questions about the Church's response to the abuse.

"So far I have not been asked to give evidence in any form, but as I have said repeatedly, I am deeply committed to assisting the royal commission and to doing anything I can to help survivors," Cardinal Pell said in a statement.

There have been harrowing accounts from survivors of abuse and there have also been reports of multiple suicides of victims.

Cardinal Pell's evidence could be heard at a second round of hearings in Ballarat later this year.

He testified by video link at a royal commission hearing in August last year.

The hearings in Ballarat have heard testimony that Cardinal Pell tried to bribe a victim and ignored another.

From Rome, the cardinal repeated previous denials of wrongdoing.

This week, the commission heard testimony by video link from notorious paedophile ex-priest Gerard Ridsdale.

Speaking from prison, Ridsdale said he never had much to do with Pell, despite the two sharing a presbytery in East Ballarat in the 1970s.

This was during a time when Ridsdale was raping boys from St Alpius School in Ballarat.

Ridsdale said he didn't discuss his offending with Pell, but admitted sharing meals with him and generally chatting.

Cardinal Pell, who is now the prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy at the Vatican, has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Ridsdale's abuse prior to 1993.

The commission also heard that Pell was present at a September 1982 meeting involving three other senior clerics - including then-Bishop Ronald Mulkearns - who had all received complaints about Ridsdale's behaviour towards children.

At the meeting there was a discussion about removing Ridsdale from the Victorian town of Mortlake - where he has since admitted abusing more than 50 children - and moving him to Sydney.

The Age newspaper issued an unreserved apology to Cardinal Pell after "Die Pell" appeared above a photo of him on its Facebook page.

Sources

• ABC
• The Age
• Sky News
• Herald Sun
• ABC
• Daily Telegraph
• The Age
• Image: Sydney Morning Herald

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 2014 of 34 charges against children between 1961 and 1980.

He had also been convicted in 1993, 1994 and 2006 for a string of other child sex offences.

Ridsdale was parish priest at Inglewood in 1975 when local police informed Bishop Mulkearns that Ridsdale had abused children.

Bishop Mulkearns sent Ridsdale away for counselling and then on to the next parish.

In the intervening years, Ridsdale made dozens of other children his victims.

The lawyer representing the victims, Viv Waller said: "I think it's quite possible that Gerald Ridsdale is Victoria's worst career paedophile."

Bishop Mulkearns was excused from appearing at the Victorian Parliamentary Inquiry into Church Abuse in 2013 after a neuropsychological examination.

The current Bishop of Ballarat, Paul Bird, did attend and admitted the decision to keep Ridsdale in the priesthood in 1975 was wrong.

Ms Walker said the case was unprecedented because it bypassed the Catholic Church's so-called "Ellis defence" - where the Church cannot be sued because, technically, it does not exist as a legal entity.

Meanwhile, Fairfax Media revealed that despite a Church promise to abandon the "Ellis defence", some dioceses and religious orders are not prepared to publicly commit to that.

Fairfax Media requested a formal undertaking from nine dioceses and religious orders that they would no longer employ the "Ellis defence" in current and future sex abuse lawsuits.

None of the organisations were willing to issue a formal statement confirming that position.

It is understood that a dispute between church organisations and their insurers has become a major impediment to implementing a policy to abandon the "Ellis defence".

Australia's Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse is starting a three-week hearing into decades of horrific abuse in Ballarat diocese.

Sources

• ABC
• Sydney Morning Herald
• The Courier
• Image: The Courier