Cardinal George Pell knew about allegations children were being sexually abused by Catholic priests nearly 30 years ago, the child sexual abuse royal commission has found.

The unredacted findings of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse suggest Cardinal Pell knew about child sexual abuse allegations against multiple priests including Gerald Ridsdale in the 1970s and 1980s.

Nine News reporter Brett McLeod said the findings of the two reports released today, which are close than 1000 pages in length, are “very interesting”.

The findings contradict Cardinal Pell’s consistent insistence he did not know about the abuse.

“His direct evidence at the Royal Commission was that he was the victim of a cover up and other bishops and other priests knew what was going on … but Pell was for some reason kept in a cloke of silence about this,” Mr McLeod told Neil Mitchell.

“The royal commission indicates they basically don’t believe him on that, that he should have known what was going on and probably did know at least some of the allegations.”

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Image: Michael Dodge