By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
CARDINAL George Pell has claimed he was deceived into not taking timely action against Doveton Holy Family’s former violent paedophile priest Peter Searson.
Cardinal Pell told a Royal Commission into institutional responses into child sexual abuse on 2 March that he was deceived by the Catholic Education Office which wanted to protect then-Archbishop Frank Little and his inaction over complaints against Father Searson.
He stated, via video link from Rome, that the office also acted out of fear it would “re-open” the protest resignation of Holy Family school principal Graeme Sleeman in 1986.
At the same time, Cardinal Pell conceded there was no evidence that the education office had not been quick to report its concerns against Father Searson to Archbishop Little and the then-Vicar General, Monsignor Peter Connors.
However his line of argument was dismissed as “completely implausible” by Gail Furness SC, counsel assisting the Royal Commission.
Cardinal Pell replied: “The whole story of Searson is quite implausible, and the cover-up is equally implausible.”
Earlier he told the hearing “I was a new boy on the block.”
“I was known to be capable of being outspoken. (The Catholic Education Office) might have been fearful of just what line I would take when confronted with all the information.”
Cardinal Pell said the education office inadequately briefed him before he received a delegation of 18 Holy Family teachers in 1989.
Cardinal Pell was at the time the region’s Auxiliary Bishop, overseeing the Doveton parish from 1987 to the mid-1990s.
Ahead of the delegation meeting, he received a list of five complaints about Searson involving children including a “small group of children shown (a) dead body in (a) coffin”, “cruelty to an animal in front of young children” and “compulsion on children to attend reconciliation on demand”.
Also on the list was “unnecessary use of children’s toilets” and “harassment of children”.
“The line that was given to me (by the education office) was that certainly there were problems but they were insufficient to remove Searson,” Cardinal Pell said.
After the meeting, he took the matter to Monsignor Connors and to Archbishop Little.
“In retrospect, I might have been a bit more pushy with all the parties involved.”
The Royal Commission had been earlier told of a litany of complaints about Father Searson such as killing a bird with a screwdriver and tossing a cat to its death – both in front of children – as well sexually abusing and striking children.
In 1993, Searson held a knife to the chest of a young girl in the church saying to her “if you move, this will go through you.”
Cardinal Pell told the hearing that his early impressions of Father Searson were of a “disconcerting man”.
“In fact, at his worst moments he could be described as one of the most unpleasant priests that I’ve met.
“Although he didn’t show that side of his personality to me very often, but I quickly learned that he was a difficult customer.”
Cardinal Pell, as then Archbishop of Melbourne, dismissed Father Searson in 1997 after police laid a charge of assaulting a boy.
Searson had been at the parish since 1984.
