Cardinal George Pell was overheard in the 1980s discussing the sexual abuse of boys at the hands of convicted paedophile Gerald Risdale, a royal commission has been told.
The explosive allegations about what Australia's most senior Catholic knew of abuse by priests in the Ballarat Diocese before he became the Archbishop of Melbourne was aired at the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.
A man, referred to as BWE during the hearing, told the inquiry he overhead a conversation between Father Frank Madden and then-auxilary priest George Pell at St Patricks Cathedral in 1983.
He said Father Madden asked "How are things going down your way?".
He said Cardinal Pell replied "I think Gerry has been rooting young boys again".
"This remark shocked me to the core. It rattled me. Because of everything I'd been told by my brothers about Gerard Ridsdale" BWE told the inquiry.
He said the next year he told his mother.
"I told her that I more or less overheard George Pell confirm that Gerard Ridsdale was still having sex with young boys," he said.
"She said to me 'don't be ridiculous'."
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-07/cardinal-george-pells-lawyer-questions-abuse-victims-testimony/7006512