Pell pulls out passport to disprove claims

Cardinal George Pell has provided his passport details to a newspaper to disprove allegations made against him, reports say.

The Herald Sun says he gave it access to a copy of his passport, showing his travels between the 1960s and 1970s to disprove allegations he had ignored the pleas of a child victim of a pedophile Christian Brother.

Paul Lyons, 55, had challenged the cardinal to prove he was not in Ballarat in 1969 when he told priests at St Alipius Presbytery of his rape.

The paper says the passport proved the cardinal was studying in Oxford at the time Mr Lyons says he was brutally raped, at age 9, in St Alipius Primary School by Christian Brother teacher Robert Best.

Mr Lyons is said to have made the allegations through his lawyer at a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child abuse.

"I want Pell to produce the pages of his passport as proof that he was visiting Australia at the time," Mr Lyon told the newspaper.