[1] Priests and brothers in the Ballarat diocese were sharing victims, passing on intelligence about vulnerable children, and protecting each other: the abuse was more organised than previously thought since the royal commission.

Catholic clergy who were convicted of child sexual offences which took place within the diocese were also invited to speak or make statements before the commission.

[30] The report also documents a Senior Constable, Blair Smith, trying to protect victims from harassment from the investigator and from perversion of the course of justice.

The Melbourne report found that former Ballarat Diocese Bishop Peter Connors was part of a culture that practiced 'using oblique or euphemistic language in correspondence and records concerning complaints of child sexual abuse'".

The following are extracts from the conclusion of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse's report into Case Study 28 – Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat:[39]This case study exposed a catastrophic failure in the leadership of the Diocese and ultimately in the structure and culture of the Church over decades to effectively respond to the sexual abuse of children by its priests.

The welfare of children was not the primary concern of Bishop Mulkearns and other senior members of the Diocese when responding to complaints and allegation of child sexual abuse against their priests.

[22][45][46][47] Following the royal commission, The Age reported that paedophile priests in Victoria worked together to share victims and there was more organisation than previously thought.

In Warrnambool, seven Catholic priests and Christian Brothers abused children in an almost-continuous stream of paedophile clerics employed between 1963 and 1994.

Notorious paedophile priests Gerald Ridsdale and Paul David Ryan, who molested boys at Warrnambool, were also sent to the US between the 1970s and early 2000s.

[2] Bishop Ronald Mulkearns approved both Ryan and Ridsdale's travel to the US for treatment and study, where both are alleged to have sexually assaulted children.

A community response during the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse was "Loud Fence", which was started by St Patrick's College school principal John Crowley who urged the public to tie ribbons to the school fence before the royal commission hearing commenced.

[54] The diocese removed the ribbons three days after the Royal Commission in to Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse published its final recommendations.

[57] In May 2020, it was revealed that the royal commission rejected Pell's defense that he was deceived when he was involved in a college of consultors decision to move Ridsdale from the Mortlake parish in Ballarat to Sydney in 1982 as "implausible" and that there were "at least complaints of sexual abuse of children having been made".

[60] The three episode documentary program Revelation, which aired on ABC TV in March 2020,[110] revealed two men, identified as Bernie and Peter Clarke, who accused Pell of sexually abusing them as boys when he served the Diocese of Ballarat.

[115] On 11 April 2020, Pell stated in an interview with Sky News journalist Andrew Bolt, which aired on Sky News Australia on 14 April 2020, that he was "ashamed" of the way the Catholic Church handled sex abuse cases and that failures to act on the abuse, which he described as "cancer", still haunted him.

[58][121] Pell had said to the commission that he "didn't do anything about it" when a young schoolboy told him that Brother Edward Dowlan was sexually abusing him, but also tried to hide the fact that it was in part his duty to assist in the investigation.

[123] Pell had also confessed to the Commission that "didn't do anything about it" when a young schoolboy told him that Brother Edward Dowlan was sexually abusing him, but also tried to hide the fact that it was also in part his duty to assist in the investigation.

[122] According to the report's newly disclosed details, which were made public on 7 May 2020, by 1973 Pell was "not only conscious of child sexual abuse by clergy but that he also had considered measures of avoiding situations which might provoke gossip about it".

[4] The commission report also stated that with regards to his role in assisting in Risdale's transfer to Sydney "We are satisfied that Cardinal Pell's evidence as to the reasons that the CEO deceived him was implausible.

[4][59][124] David Ridsdale testified that the attempted bribe took place when he told Pell about the sex abuse over the phone in February 1983.

[96] Lawsuits against Pell, and also cases concerning sexually abusive Diocese of Ballarat priests such as Ridsdale and Robert Claffey, played a major role in the list's creation.