Cardinal George Pell 'tried to bribe me'

Cardinal George Pell tried to bribe a victim of pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale, the royal commission has heard.

David Ridsdale, the nephew of Australia's worst pedophile priest, says he told Cardinal Pell in 1993 about the abuse at the hands of his uncle.

He told the royal commission on Wednesday Cardinal Pell, a family friend, asked him: "I want to know what it will take to keep you quiet."

Bombshell claims Pell offered bribes to child sex abuse victims. Photo: Getty images

Mr Ridsdale said Cardinal Pell started talking about his growing family and that he may soon have to buy a car or house.

He said his response was "f*** you George and everything you stand for".

After he hung up, Mr Ridsdale said he told his sisters about the phone conversation.

"I remember saying to both my sisters: `the bastard just tried to bribe me'," Mr Ridsdale told the royal commission hearing in Ballarat.

"I have never stated that Pell offered me anything specific or tangible in our conversation, only that his attempts to direct the conversation down a particular path made me extremely suspicious of his motivations and what he was insinuating."

David Ridsdale giving evidence at the Royal Commission public hearing in Ballarat on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo: AAP

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan says Cardinal Pell will be required to make a statement about the allegations.

Church counsel Peter Gray SC said Cardinal Pell has publicly and repeatedly said his recollection of the conversation with Mr Ridsdale is quite different.

Cardinal Pell, now the finance chief at the Vatican, has been mentioned at the commission this week by several witnesses who claim he knew about the widespread abuse in Ballarat while he was a priest in the city in the 1970s.

One abuse victim told the commission Pell ignored him and walked out after being told a Christian Brother was molesting children.

Timothy Green, 53, said he told then Father Pell that Brother Edward Vernon Dowlan was abusing boys at Ballarat's St Patrick's College in late 1974.

"I said Brother Dowlan is touching little boys," Mr Green said on Wednesday.

"Father Pell said `don't be ridiculous' and walked out." Mr Green, who said he was 12 or 13 when he told Cardinal Pell, was himself a victim of Dowlan.

"Father Pell didn't ask any questions. He didn't say what do you mean or how could you say that," he said.

"He just dismissed it and walked out.

"His reaction gave me the impression that he knew about Brother Dowlan but couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it."

Justice McClellan said he expected the commissioners would make a finding about what Cardinal Pell was told.

Another abuse victim, BAV, told the commission that after he had been abused by Ridsdale in a bedroom at the Ballarat presbytery, Cardinal Pell, who also lived there, arrived home.

"I saw the back of Father Pell but did not know if he saw me and Father Ridsdale or not," BAV said.

Cardinal Pell has previously denied Mr Green told him about the abuse, after the claims were made in the media.

Cardinal Pell said in 2002: "At a distance of 28 years, I have no recollection of any such conversation. If I was approached and thought the stories plausible I would have informed the Christian Brothers."

Dowlan, 65, was in March ordered to serve at least three years of a six-year prison sentence for indecently assaulting 20 boys under his care at Victorian schools in the 1970s and 1980s.

Compensation call for abuse victims

The Catholic Church's handling of child sex abuse is in some ways worse than the actual abuse, a Ballarat victim says.

The victim, known as BAV, told the child abuse royal commission there is not enough support and understanding for victims, with men abused as children at Catholic institutions still committing suicide.

"I believe the church's handling of the abuse has in some ways been worse than the initial sexual abuse that occurred," the commission heard in Ballarat on Wednesday.

"The abuse might be historical but suicides by victims of sexual assault are still going and is still happening."

BAV was abused by convicted pedophiles Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale and Brother Robert Charles Best.

Two brothers and a cousin committed suicide after they were also abused, he said.

BAV said five men in his class at Ballarat's St Alipius primary school had committed suicide and he knew of an additional nine men who went to the school who had also died.

"I have been and continue to be impacted by the grief and loss of losing other victims of Brother Best to suicide, some of them were my family, brothers and cousins."

BAV said he knew of other survivors in Ballarat who had issues with alcohol and drug abuse and depression.

"I believe there is not enough understanding of the impact of child sexual abuse and there is inadequate support and services provided to victims of child sexual assault."

He said there should be compensation or some form of pension paid to victims of child sexual assault.

BAV said on one occasion, after Ridsdale has abused him in a bedroom at the presbytery, the other priest who lived there - now Cardinal George Pell - arrived home.

"I saw the back of Father Pell but did not know if he saw me and Father Ridsdale or not."

Victim 'had teeth pulled out with pliers'

Gordon Hill, 72, told the commission he was sexually and physically abused at Ballarat's St Joseph's Home in what he called 'horror rooms and dungeons'.

He told the inquiry he was first abused by three priests, the first incident occurred when he was just five-years-old.

"I was given a drink and I blacked out," he told the inquiry.

"When I woke up my genitals and bottom hurt...I discovered bite marks. The priest told me to get out."

He claimed on one occasion he was abused by a priest in a confessional box while parishioners gave their confessions.

"If I made a noise as I was sitting beneath the priest's bench in the confessional box he would whack me across the face to shut me up," Mr Hill said.

"If any Catholics had known what was going on they would have been horrified."

On other occasions Mr Hill claimed he was strapped down naked, tied up and sexually abused.

He said he was subjected to electric shock therapy when the nuns wanted to find out if he had told anyone of his abuse, after he was found in a local hospital.

"It was like some sort of electric shock therapy," he said after travelling 3000km from Western Australia to read his statement to the commission hearing in Ballarat.

"They wanted to know what I had told them at the hospital."

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Mr Hill also described being tortured by the nuns as punishment.

"Sometimes the nuns would punish us by pulling out a tooth with a pair of pliers or hitting one of us in the head with an engineer's hammer."

The ABC reports Mr Hill began crying as he recalled the ongoing nightmares and role the abuse had taken on in his life.

"I felt like an outcast, always in the background, from all the rejection I got when I was at St Joseph's," he said.

"One of the last things my wife said before she died...was that she hoped one day I could tell my story."

A lawyer for the Sisters of Nazareth, who administered St Joseph's Home, said they had only recently received his statement and Mr Hill had so far chosen not to contact the sisters.

• Readers seeking support and information about suicide prevention can contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Suicide Call Back Service 1300 659 467.

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