George Pell, a former advisor to Pope Francis and Australia's most senior Catholic cleric, knew about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church for decades, report alleges

• An unredacted report by Australia's royal commission released on Thursday local time alleges that George Pell, a former advisor to Pope Francis and Australia's most senior Catholic cleric, knew about sexual abuse within the Catholic church for decades and did little to stop it.
• The 78-year-old was previously convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys at a Melbourne church, though his historic conviction was overturned last month.
• According to the report, by 1973 Pell was "not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it."
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Cardinal George Pell, a former advisor to Pope Francis and Australia's most senior Catholic cleric, knew about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church since at least 1973, an unredacted report by Australia's royal commission alleged on Thursday local time.

The 78-year-old previously served as archbishop of Melbourne and was also one of Pope Francis' closest advisors. He was previously convicted of sexually abusing two 13-year-old boys at a Melbourne church, though his historic conviction was overturned last month.

Over 100 pages of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse related to allegations against Pell were unredacted on Thursday and sent to the Australian parliament. The commission initially delivered its final report to parliament in 2017 after a five-year investigation.

The commission alleged that Pell should have done more to prevent sexual abuse and remove clergymen who were known to have committed sexual abuse.

According to the report, by 1973 Pell was "not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it."

According to The Guardian, the commission noted allegations that Pell tried to bribe a sexual abuse survivor from Ballarat, Australia, named David Risdale into keeping quiet about his abuse at the hands of a priest — who was also his uncle — named Gerald Ridsdale.

"[Pell] then began to talk about my growing family and my need to take care of their needs," Ridsdale told the commission. "He mentioned how I would soon have to buy a car or house for my family."

The commission said it was satisfied that Pell "turned his mind" to the priest taking the boys on overnight camps. The report said that Pell acknowledged that the likely reason for this "was the possibility that if priests were one-on-one with a child then they could sexually abuse a child or at least provoke gossip about such a prospect."

Gerald Risdale was convicted over 130 charges of sexual abuse and indecent assault that occurred between 1961 to 1988 against 65 children, some as young as eight-years-old. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison. Pell has continuously denied knowing about sexual abuse in Ballarat churches while he served as a priest there in the 1970s and 1980s.

Pell was convicted on December 11, 2018, of one charge of sexual penetration of a child and four charges of committing an act of indecency with or in the presence of a child. The prosecution alleged that the incidents happened on two separate occasions, once in 1996 and again in 1997 at Melbourne's St Patrick's Cathedral following a Sunday mass service.

Pell was taken into custody last February. His legal team appealed to Victoria's Court of Appeal last year unsuccessfully.

The High Court last month unanimously concluded that "there ought to have been a reasonable doubt" as to whether Pell was guilty, essentially that there was not enough evidence to convict him.

Pell released a statement after the High Court ruling, maintaining his innocence and calling the convictions against him "a serious injustice."

His office has not yet released a statement about the Royal Commission's report.