Cardinal says ‘I don’t know what this poor fellow was up to’ in his first interview since his release from jail on Sky News

Cardinal George Pell has described the complainant who testified against him as a “poor fellow” and claimed he may have been “used” in his first interview since his release from jail after being acquitted of historical child sexual abuse charges.

The Sky News conservative commentator and longtime Pell supporter, Andrew Bolt, interviewed Pell in Sydney on Saturday, and the interview aired on Tuesday night. Asked by Bolt why he thinks the complainant made the allegations, Pell said: “I don’t know.”

“I wonder whether he was used,” Pell continued. “I don’t know what this poor fellow was up to.” He did not elaborate on who the complainant may have been used by. But he spoke of corruption in the Vatican, and also made allegations of corruption in Victoria. Pell said he was unpopular among some Vatican officials for his efforts to get the institution’s finances in order. Asked by Bolt “how high up the corruption goes”, Pell responded: “Who knows.”

“It’s a little bit like Victoria,” Pell said. “You’re not quite sure where the vein runs, how thick and broad it is, and how high it goes.” Asked if police had persecuted him, Pell said: “Well I think the onus is on them, in the face of that evidence, to show why that’s not true.”

Police investigating George Pell over fresh child sexual abuse allegation – report Read more

Pell has moved from Victoria to Sydney since being released from jail last Tuesday, and is staying at a seminary in Homebush. On Tuesday it was revealed by the Herald Sun that Pell is being investigated by Victoria police in relation to a new allegation.

Bolt accused Victoria police and the ABC of engaging in a witch-hunt. In what was a soft interview, Bolt said there was a campaign against Pell that “was like Salem it was so primitive”.

Pell said “I’m the scapegoat that’s copped most of this”. He said his actions setting up the Melbourne Response – the scheme established by the Catholic archdiocese of Melbourne in 1996 to respond to allegations of sexual abuse within the church – had not been adequately recognised.

“I don’t think the church has ever got enough credit for the fact we broke the back of this problem [child sexual abuse],” Pell said. “It stopped. Not completely.” Bolt did not press Pell about the numerous issues raised about the Melbourne Response by child sexual abuse survivors when Australia held a five-year-long royal commission into institutional responses to abuse. Survivors described the Melbourne Response as biased against victims and designed to dissuade victims from pursuing legal action.

Bolt described the royal commission as “extremely hostile” towards Pell.

The royal commission’s findings about Pell have never been released due to the previous criminal trial. Now that the appeals process is complete, there have been calls including from politicians for the findings from that report to be made public. Pell told Bolt he would “be very surprised if”, when the report is made public, “there were any bad findings against me at all”.

Pell told the royal commission in 2016 that although he lived and worked alongside the notorious paedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s, Ridsdale’s abusing “was a sad story and of not much interest to me”. “I had no reason to turn my mind to the evils Ridsdale had perpetrated,” he told the commission.

Cardinal George Pell writes about suffering, jail and coronavirus in News Corp piece Read more

Pell told Bolt that Ridsdale had “done an immense amount of harm”. “He acknowledges that and regrets it”. However, prosecutors have questioned Ridsdale’s remorse, given he failed to confess to crimes that would have meant his victims could have avoided a drawn-out legal process. Pell was not grilled by Bolt about his actions when he shared a house with Ridsdale, or when he sat on a committee of priests who made decisions to move Ridsdale from parish to parish. Pell accompanied Ridsdale to court when he was finally charged.

“We’re trained to think well of people and I don’t regret that,” Pell told Bolt. “We’re trained not to believe gossip unless it’s established. Most don’t run around detailing the faults of others. Back then, the first instinct would be to disbelieve [allegations].”

He said it was not unusual for police to work with priests to move offenders from parish to parish.

“Sometimes … the police would work with the bishop to move the person on to deal with it,” Pell said. “It wasn’t as though we were alone in this.”

Pell said now that he was free he planned to stay in Sydney, with a little bit of travel to Rome.

“I’m 14 years past retirement age in Australia,” he said. “I’ll go quietly. I’ll probably do a little bit of writing, keep reading, I’ll certainly stay in Sydney. I might go to Rome for a while. I might grow a few cabbages, and a few roses and things.”