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The Catholic Church was more concerned with protecting its own reputation than helping victims of clergy abuse, and had a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints, Cardinal George Pell has told the royal commission into institutional responses to sexual child abuse in Australia.
“At that stage, the instinct was more to protect the institution, the community of the church, from shame,” he told the commission in Sydney via videolink from Rome.
On the first day of four scheduled days of evidence before Australia’s royal commission on Monday, Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, conceded the church’s handling of child sexual abuse in the case of
phile priest Gerald Ridsdale was a “catastrophe”.
“I’m not here to defend the indefensible, the church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the church has in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down. I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”
Pell is Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy of the Holy See, widely reportedly as the third-ranking position in the Vatican - a title he disputed in his evidence on Monday. He has already appeared twice before this commission.
For this third appearance, the cardinal was given dispensation to give evidence by videolink to the commission in Sydney from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome after church doctors ruled he was too ill to fly. The 74-year-old Pell has a heart condition.
A group of 15 survivors travelled from Australia to Rome to watch the testimony – a decision that survivor Paul Levey described as an attempt to make Pell feel something of the pressure he might have felt in Australia. They were seated just across the room from the cardinal. Some had t-shirts that said “Stop the silence” while another, Peter Blenkiron, wore a green shirt with a picture of a young boy on it.
Pell said in the early 1970s, when he first heard allegations of priests sexually abusing children, he was “strongly inclined” to believe the priests’ version of events.
In 1972 he became aware of allegations Monsignor John Day had been sexually abusing children. But he was also aware Day had denied the allegations.
“I must say, in those days, if a priest denied such activity, I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial,” Pell said.
The church had a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints against priests, he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/australi...g-with-:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:phile-priests
“At that stage, the instinct was more to protect the institution, the community of the church, from shame,” he told the commission in Sydney via videolink from Rome.
On the first day of four scheduled days of evidence before Australia’s royal commission on Monday, Pell, Australia’s most senior Catholic, conceded the church’s handling of child sexual abuse in the case of
phile priest Gerald Ridsdale was a “catastrophe”. “I’m not here to defend the indefensible, the church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the church has in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down. I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”
Pell is Prefect of the Secretariat for the Economy of the Holy See, widely reportedly as the third-ranking position in the Vatican - a title he disputed in his evidence on Monday. He has already appeared twice before this commission.
For this third appearance, the cardinal was given dispensation to give evidence by videolink to the commission in Sydney from the Hotel Quirinale in Rome after church doctors ruled he was too ill to fly. The 74-year-old Pell has a heart condition.
A group of 15 survivors travelled from Australia to Rome to watch the testimony – a decision that survivor Paul Levey described as an attempt to make Pell feel something of the pressure he might have felt in Australia. They were seated just across the room from the cardinal. Some had t-shirts that said “Stop the silence” while another, Peter Blenkiron, wore a green shirt with a picture of a young boy on it.
Pell said in the early 1970s, when he first heard allegations of priests sexually abusing children, he was “strongly inclined” to believe the priests’ version of events.
In 1972 he became aware of allegations Monsignor John Day had been sexually abusing children. But he was also aware Day had denied the allegations.
“I must say, in those days, if a priest denied such activity, I was very strongly inclined to accept the denial,” Pell said.
The church had a “predisposition not to believe” children who made complaints against priests, he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/australi...g-with-:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:phile-priests
