(From left) Paul Levey, Peter Blenkiron , Paul Auchettl, Gordon Hill, Tony Wardley, Garry Sculey and Phil Nagle, survivors of child abuse by Catholic clergy in Australia, face reporters in Rome on Wednesday to watch the video-linked Cardinal George Pell's Royal commission appearance. An Australian inquiry heard a gun-toting pedophile priest who made children kneel between his legs during confession, even as Cardinal Pell admitted a time of "crimes and coverups" within the Catholic Church. Photo: AFP

Cardinal George Pell was aware of child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Australia as far back as the 1970s and failed to seek the removal of accused priests, according to parts of a top-level inquiry released Thursday.

The Royal Commission report was handed down in 2017 but pages relating to Pell's conduct were heavily redacted to prevent jurors in his trials on child sex abuse allegations from being prejudiced.

Australia's High Court in April acquitted the former Vatican treasurer of all charges and freed him from jail, allowing the release of findings relating to Pell from the Royal Commission into institutional child sex abuse.

The commission found that Pell, when he was a priest in the rural diocese of Ballarat in Victoria state, had begun considering in 1973 the "prudence" of now-jailed child sex abuser Gerald Ridsdale taking boys on overnight camping trips.

"By this time, child sexual abuse was on his radar," the commission said. 

The commission found it was "likely that he knew of Ridsdale's sexual transgressions" when Pell joined a meeting about moving the priest to another parish in 1977.

Pell, who lived with Ridsdale in 1973 and supported him at his first court appearance in 1993, has insisted that he had no memory of claims of sustained mistreatment in Ballarat.

The commission also found that Pell should have sought the removal of another priest, Father Peter Searson, after receiving a list of complaints from a delegation of teachers in 1989 when Pell was auxiliary bishop in Melbourne.

AFP