Charlie:

I was at work, actually. I wasn't paying particular attention. A friend had messaged me who said “George Pell has died.” And his exact words to me, “If there is a God, I guess now he has to deal with Pell”, which I thought was an interesting way of putting it, really, because, in a lot of ways I feel the same.

Lindsay:

I was initially quite angry and thought, this is the end of the path to justice, because there were lots of questions left unanswered. But overall, my overriding emotion was disappointment.

Craig:

It reminded me of the Royal Commission. It made me think of all the survivors out there that would similarly be thinking about various aspects of their own experience, and that it would be bringing up, you know, like me, mixed emotions.

Lindsay:

I see the person as George Pell, as a person who failed to meet his obligations, a person who failed to protect children, a person who failed to protect the most vulnerable people in our community, that he was a man who had the chance to do good and failed to take it up.

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My name is Lindsay Gardner, and I was a sexual abuse survivor, perpetrated by a Catholic priest, in the Maitland-Newcastle Diocese.

Charlie:

G’day, Hi, my name is Charlie. I'm a victim/survivor of institutional sex abuse scandal.

Craig:

My name is Craig Hughes Cashmore, and I'm a survivor. And I'm also one of the co-founders and the CEO of Survivors of Mate Support Network, a.k.a Samson.

RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

After a funeral service in the Vatican, George Pell’s body is returning to Australia, where it will be interred in the crypts below St Mary’s cathedral.

To his supporters, Pell was a guardian of traditional faith and doctrine, whose conviction on charges of child sexual abuse was overturned by the high court.

To thousands of survivors of child sexual abuse perpetrated by priests, Pell was the leader who oversaw an era when the Church moved too slowly, and protected itself rather than children.

Today, Lucie Morris-Marr – freelance investigative journalist and the author of a book about the trial of George Pell, Fallen – on the questions left for thousands of survivors after his death.

It’s Wednesday January 18.

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RUBY:

Lucie, at the height of his career, George Pell was probably the most powerful religious leader in Australian history. So, at the peak of his influence - what kind of access, what kind of authority did he wield - and how did he get that power, reach those heights?

LUCIE:

Oh, he was hugely, hugely ambitious, right from a young age. You know, even when he was about 18, his father didn't want him to be a priest, but he knew he had his sights set on it. His mother was the one who had taken him to St Patrick's Cathedral every Sunday in Ballarat. And something about it, obviously, got under his skin, and he wanted to go all the way. He wanted to give up the things you have to give up to be a priest, marriage, and children, and all those traditional things. And when he was at seminary in Werribee — I've spoken to a lot of his peers at the time — he was very dogmatic even then. He was just one of those larger than life figures, and he wanted a large life for himself. I wouldn't be surprised if very, very early on his eyes were set on Rome. I mean, he, you know, that's where he was going to. That's where he felt he was destined, that's where he was supposed to be.

And of course, his influence was huge. Prime ministers here, and overseas, would seek his counsel. He was very popular among many. And, of course, he had influence on the media, and other figures. So, yeah, he became, you know, a tiny priest from Ballarat, and then he rose to be someone that had the ear of very powerful people.

RUBY:

And one of the first signs that things might be about to change for for George Pell, that his reputation might be in danger was after the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was announced — and before then, sexual abuse by priests had had been talked about a lot — but what emerged during the Royal Commission was incredibly damaging for the Catholic Church, as well as ultimately personally damaging for Pell and and hearings focusing on Pell really kind of raised this question of what Pell knew, and and what he did or didn't do when it came to the abuse of children by others in the church. So can you tell me about what we heard when George Pell finally did give evidence to the commission?

LUCIE:

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was actually first called for by Julia Gillard amid lots of controversy and pushback.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“I’m here to announce that I will be recommending to the government general that a Royal Commission be appointed to inquire into institutional responses to instances and allegations of child abuse in Australia.”

LUCIE:

And eventually, once it got going, it had a huge scope.

Archival tape – Julia Gillard:

“There have been revelations of child abusers being moved from place to place, rather than the nature of their abuse and their crimes being dealt with. There have been too many revelations of adults who have averted their eyes from this evil.”

LUCIE:

And of course, a lot of the Royal commission focused on Ballarat — a small regional town just outside Melbourne – where so much Catholic abuse had happened to children. Then of course the link was George Pell had been brought up there. He'd spent his time as a young priest in the area. That's when it really reached a climax, in terms of Pell being involved, and mentioned many times at that point.

Archival tape – Ted Dowling:

“Cardinal Pell, you said you were told of generalised allegations by the press. What were you told?”

LUCIE:

He was called three times for the Royal commission and he was co-operative. He was very defensive though, of course.

Archival tape – George Pell:

“I can't remember in any detail, except that there were unfortunate rumours about his activity with young people. It was always vague and unspecific.”

LUCIE:

He wasn't denying there was ever child abuse in the church, but he was certainly denying himself having ever done anything wrong. He did make some concessions in sort of saying, oh, you know, he didn't listen to gossip and things like that. He had to face allegations of moving around offending priests, priests who weren't moved and then went on to attack and abuse children. There were also allegations of silencing victims and also, again, failure to move priests, even though he knew they were offending.

Archival tape – George Pell:

“I didn’t know whether it was common knowledge or whether it wasn’t. It’s a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me…. “

Archival tape – Commissioner:

“What wasn’t of much interest to you cardinal?”

Archival tape – George Pell:

“The suffering of course was real, and I very much regret that, but I have no reason to turn my mind to the extent of the evils that Ridsdale had perpetrated.”

RUBY:

And Lucy, it was around this time, when Pell was being called to the Royal Commission in 2016, that you broke the story that George Pell was actually under police investigation himself, for alleged crimes against children. So how did that come about?

LUCIE:

Well, I just started on the Herald Sun as a senior reporter, and we were actually looking into mainly had he moved around priests, had he ignored abuse going on. We were especially focussed on his time living in Ballarat with the paedophile priest, Gerald Ridsdale, who is Australia's worst paedophile priest. Probably worse paedophile actually. He's still in prison, he’s well into his eighties.

But he lived with him for a year in the presbytery in Ballarat, St Alipius Presbytery in 1973. The tip that we had was that a lady, who is now an adult living in regional Victoria, had been a child, and had been abused by Gerald Ridsdale, and that was undisputed, like he'd gotten prison time for this. But during her evidence she had mentioned that another priest had seen the abuse, and simply walked past in the corridor. And the rumour was, that she had said it was Pell.

And I'd just joined, and obviously I’m from London, and I had a lot of experience in investigative journalism, and I was set the task, and that was my starting point. I never expected to find what I eventually did. I went and visited this lady, and then I ended up at the Ballarat hearing case study that was about to happen. So I went there and I did a lot of reporting on the wider matter in Ballarat, and other places of the Catholic child abuse, and I became immersed in the subject. While I was covering that, I kept investigating Pell, then eventually, in February 2016, I did uncover — through contacts I had made — that there was a secret SANO taskforce investigating Pell that had been investigating Pell for a year, involving allegations of multiple children at the time, who are now adults. That was a real shock, and I had not expected that actually at all, and neither had my editors. So that was a real moment that I'll never forget.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this

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RUBY:

Lucie, in 2016, you reported that George Pell was under police investigation for alleged sex crimes against children. Pell, of course, ended up being charged, going to trial, and was then convicted - in 2018 - of five counts of sexually abusing two boys. He went to jail until that conviction was overturned in the High Court - he was acquitted. But if we go back to your reporting – when you published that first story – what was the response like?

LUCIE:

Almost immediately, it was just like I've said before, setting off an earthquake really. His supporters in the media, even on my own paper, Andrew Bolt, who's a columnist, very well known, he went absolutely wild and angry, complaining to the police, even, in the paper, saying that this was the result of leaks, and there should be investigation into the reporter — which was me — this was quite shocking. I was new to News Corp, so I was absolutely confused and very angered that the paper had put me into this position, and published these words, when they knew what was at stake, and they knew how difficult this already was, and they knew that there was always going to be a massive fight back from the cardinal in Rome, which there was. He immediately called for an IBAC inquiry — a fraud inquiry — to find out where I got the story. His supporters in the media, including my own paper, including News Corp — who I worked for — joined him in that call. I felt very alone. I felt very isolated. It was absolutely a terrible time. It was an intensely pressured time. You know, you make an allegation against someone so powerful like that, you do expect your own paper, at least, to support you. I knew there was long standing relationships with some of the senior management with Pell, long standing friendships from when he was Archbishop in Melbourne. And I wanted to ask questions, you know? If they want to ask questions to powerful people, they've also got to take the questions. So that's what I did, that was my job. I felt like I was representing at that point victims. So I carried on, and it didn't go down very well. But I don't regret that because we parted ways and maybe that's what was supposed to happen.

RUBY:

And you were going through this as a journalist, but what did your experience suggest to you about what it would have been like as a victim of abuse to go up against someone like Pell and the institution of the church knowing that he had the support of so many?

LUCIE:

Oh, absolutely intimidating. And that's exactly what used to happen on a smaller scale in Ballarat. You know, you'd get the little child telling their parents, the parents would go and tell the priest, if you're lucky, sometimes some of the victims I spoke to, one man said “I told my mum I've been raped at school, at St Alipius, in a dark corner” and my mum said, “Go and tell your dad.” and the dad said, “Go and tell your mum”, and nothing was said. You know, at this point the priests were held as gods in places like Ballarat — very strong Catholic strongholds — and they were taken and might complain to the bishop for example, and then they would be silenced, or threatened, and nothing would be done. They certainly weren't calling the police. So you can see how this is right at these levels, and then at higher levels, they pull strings, they have friends in the media. It was really illuminating, and quite frightening. And it still goes on. And the media, we're supposed to represent the public, to hold the powerful accountable. But on this matter, it still shocks me, it shouldn't really after all these years, but even on his death, there's been these glowing obituaries. You know, The Australian devoting a front page, “God's Strong man”, it said, with his picture on the front with glowing, glowing reports inside. And then powerful figures, such as Tony Abbott, calling him a saint. Peter Dutton, saying “what a great intellectual”, it is absolutely offensive to the work of the royal Commission, which was done absolutely impeccably by impeccable individuals. And this denial of reality really, really upsets victims and their families.

RUBY:

And a large part of what Pell is accused of, is really, looking the other way, of allowing child abuse to happen because he wanted to further his own career within the Catholic Church. And that's abhorrent for many reasons, but especially so because I think for most people, the idea of ambition and ascent within the church, any church, should be synonymous with doing good, not with accruing power for power's sake. And that's the kind of deep hypocrisy here, isn't it, when it comes to Pell?

LUCIE:

Yes, exactly. Where are the Christian values here? You know, they seem to be lost. The children's voices were suppressed. That legacy, though, of child abuse, so many adults across Victoria, thousands and thousands, who are living with those memories, and it affects every aspect of their life: their relationships, their jobs, their self-esteem, and sadly, some don't make it. There have been many, many suicides that we'll never really know the full number of. Some people don't actually come forward and share what's happened because their parents are still alive, they don’t want to upset their parents, or they're just too frightened or too ashamed, for example. And so we'll never really know the true extent of it either.

It's a very dark legacy. There's no good parts. Yes, someone can be nice, but when you've got allegations like this of, you know, sort of stains that really, you know, they can't be hailed as a saint. I think Daniel Andrews was the only one, in the last few days, who’s really spoke quite clearly, on the side of those affected by child abuse. He’s said “No, a state funeral would not be appropriate”, and I think that was very much welcomed in the community, and by those adults, across Australia, who've been impacted by institutional child abuse in the church. His supporters say, “Oh, he can't be blamed for all that”, no, but he didn't help matters. And there's so many allegations of his attitude, and his behaviour around it, that means, you know, he can't be hailed. He's not deserving of these glowing obituaries.

RUBY:

Lucy, thank you so much for your time.

LUCIE:

It's my pleasure. Thank you for asking me.

RUBY:

If this story has raised any issues for you, for support you can contact Blue Knot on 1300 657 380 and The Survivors and Mates Support Network on 1800 472 676…

Charlie:

My advice is to find somebody. Find somebody you can talk to. Just find somebody to talk to, as hard as that is to go through. There is light at the end of the tunnel, and as lengthy as some of these processes can be, justice, and opening, and healing, can mean so many different things to different people, just find that thing and just find somebody to talk to. That's all I can say. Yeah, that's my suggestion.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

A former London police officer, has pleaded guilty to a decades-long campaign of abuse and assault against a dozens of women, including more than forty charges of rape.

The case revealed that the Metropolitan police were repeatedly told of the allegations against the officer, but failed to remove him from the force.

The offences triggered an apology from the UK’s metropolitan police, the organisation announced it is investigating around 800 of its own officers over domestic violence and sexual assault offences.

And Federal Senator Jim Molan has died, at age 72. Molan, a sitting senator for New South Wales, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer two years ago.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am, see you tomorrow.

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