Catholic clergy (including George Pell) looked the other way during Father Ridsdale's life of crime:

This Broken Rites article is the most comprehensive account available about how the Catholic Church harboured this child-abuse criminal — Father Gerald Francis Ridsdale — for 30 years in western Victoria while his superiors and fellow-priests remained silent to protect the church's public image. In 1982, when Father Ridsdale had been abusing children for 20 years, a clergy committee (of which Father George Pell was a member) noted that Ridsdale was being transferred away from Victoria. Eventually, some of Ridsdale's victims began to report his crimes to the Victoria Police, instead of merely to the offending organisation (the church).
So, in 1993, Victorian detectives charged Ridsdale in court. He was accompanied to court by his support person, George Pell, who had become an assistant bishop in Melbourne. However, no bishop accompanied the victims. Encouraged by Broken Rites, more victims later spoke to the detectives. In his four court cases between 1993 and 2014, Ridsdale has been jailed for a minimum of 24 years for assaulting 54 of his victims. In 2017, after eleven more of his victims spoke to the detectives, Ridsdale is facing court again, on a fifth batch of charges, including rape, buggery and indecent assault. Broken Rites is proud of its role in exposing the church's cover-up of this criminal priest.

http://www.brokenrites.org.au/drupal/node/55