Australian Catholics torn over allegations against their cardinal

Cardinal George Pell talks during a news conference in connection with the presentation of the new president of the Vatican Bank in 2014. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)

SYDNEY — Like many of their brethren around the world, Catholics in Australia have been rocked in recent years by evidence of systemic child abuse in the church.

One big question remains, though, for the country's 5 million Catholics: Was one of their top clerics complicit?

Last month, George Pell, now a cardinal and senior Vatican official, was questioned in Rome by Australian police after public allegations in July by two former students that he had inappropriately touched them in a swimming pool back in the 1970s.

“The cardinal does not wish to cause any distress to any victim of abuse,” his office said in July. “However, claims that he has sexually abused anyone, in any place, at any time in his life are totally untrue and completely wrong.”

Pell had faced earlier allegations that he had failed to act on reports of child abuse when he was an up-and-coming priest in the 1970s in the regional city of Ballarat.

Pell was approached by a student at the local Catholic school, St. Patrick’s, in 1974, according to evidence given to a government inquiry. “We’ve got to do something about what’s going on at St. Pat’s,” the student, Timothy Green, allegedly said. “Brother Dowlan is touching little boys.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pell replied, according to Green, and walked off.

Edward Dowlan, a teacher at the school, was later convicted of molesting 31 children and given two six-year jail terms.

Pell told the inquiry he had no memory of the conversation with Green but acknowledged he had heard rumors at the time that Dowlan was engaging in sexual misconduct. “In the light of my present understandings, although, I would concede I should have done more,” he told the inquiry.

It wasn’t the only allegation of Pell ignoring pleas for help. Pell shared a house in Ballarat around the same time with a fellow priest who later emerged as one of the church’s most notorious pedophiles. When a young victim of the priest told Pell he was being abused, Pell, by his own admission, did nothing. “It was a sad story and it wasn’t of much interest to me,” he told the inquiry last year.