Cardinal George Pell denies child abuse claims
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Australia’s most senior Roman Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has called claims he sexually abused children “a scandalous smear campaign”.
Details of alleged incidents were broadcast on the Australian Broadcasting Corp’s 7.30 program.
Victoria Police has confirmed it is investigating multiple allegations against the cardinal.
Cardinal Pell’s office said he “unequivocally rejects any allegations of sexual abuse against him”.
Read the full statement from Cardinal George Pell’s office.
The allegations
Two men, now aged in their forties, from Cardinal Pell’s home town of Ballarat said he had touched them inappropriately in the 1970s by grasping them around the groin to throw them into the air while swimming.
In a separate incident alleged to have taken place in the 1980s, a man said he had found it “very odd” to find the cardinal standing naked in front of three boys in the changing rooms at a local surf club.
The Australian Broadcasting Corp (ABC) reported another complaint from the 1990s involving two teenage choirboys. One of the complainants has since died, the ABC said, but no details were provided.
Cardinal Pell declined to be interviewed and said he had never abused anyone.
“The Cardinal does not wish to cause any distress to any victim of abuse,” his office said in a statement.
“However, claims that he has sexually abused anyone, in any place, at any time in his life are totally untrue and completely wrong.”
The ABC released a statement denying that the information contained in the 7.30 report had been leaked to them by police.
“Nor did witnesses approach the ABC. The report was the result of our own on-the-ground journalism over the course of months, which included finding people who would be willing to talk to us on camera,” the statement read.
Police investigation
Victoria Police chief commissioner Graham Ashton said it was clear from the ABC report that “the source of that information was from the [alleged] victims”.
“We haven’t provided the ABC with materials,” Mr Ashton told Melbourne radio station 3AW.
“Anyone that saw the show last night, the victims, you could see their emotion, they are traumatised from what they are saying has happened to them, and are talking to the media about that.”
In February, Cardinal Pell gave evidence to an Australian royal commission from Rome about whether he knew paedophiles were active in churches under his watch.
He was a priest in Ballarat and lived in a seminary with a notorious paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, in the early 1970s.
Cardinal Pell, who was not accused of sexual abuse, denied knowing about paedophile priests who were active in the Ballarat diocese.
“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those but the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” he said.
