Pope Francis’ adviser did not act over abuse

A senior Vatican official told an Australian sex abuse inquiry that he did not act when a boy raised abuse allegations against a cleric in the 1970s.

But Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, denied that he angrily dismissed an allegation against the same cleric made by another schoolboy. He also denied that he attempted to bribe an abuse victim to stay quiet, and that he joked about a paedophile priest long before that priest was charged.

Pell was giving evidence for a fourth, and final, day to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. He was doing so from a Rome hotel conference room a short distance from the Vatican.