A royal commission's findings about Cardinal George Pell's handling of child sexual abuse complaints won't be released for weeks.
The High Court's decision to overturn Cardinal Pell's criminal convictions paves the way for blacked-out sections of two reports from the child abuse royal commission to be released.
Federal Attorney-General Christian Porter said the reports should be released without redactions where possible.
He said his office first needed to check with Victorian authorities to ensure the information would not prejudice any future investigations or prosecutions.
"That could take a number of weeks," Mr Porter told reporters in Canberra on Tuesday.
"But my strong preference is to have as much of the information that has been redacted, tabled with less redaction.
"There is a process now for me to go through with Victorian authorities to determine whether those redactions can be lifted or modified without doing any prejudice to any future proceedings."
Redacted versions of the royal commission's reports into the Catholic Church's handling of child abuse allegations in the Melbourne archdiocese and Ballarat diocese were released in December 2017.
The inquiry's findings will not relate to abuse allegations against Cardinal Pell himself, but rather his knowledge of complaints against pedophile priests during his time in Ballarat and Melbourne.
Cardinal Pell, a former Sydney and Melbourne archbishop, was a priest in Ballarat and auxiliary bishop in Melbourne.
Chrissie Foster, a long-time campaigner for child abuse victims after two-of-her-three daughters were raped by a Melbourne priest, was among those calling for the royal commission findings to be released.
"What's got to happen is the royal commission's redacted sections need to be unredacted and we'll see there what George Pell was doing, according to them," she said.
Three other royal commission reports were also not released in full or in part because the inquiry did not want to prejudice current or future criminal or civil proceedings.
The royal commission expected unredacted versions of the reports would be published at a later date.
Australian Associated Press
