Australia’s Top Cardinal: Scandal Drove Sex Abuse Coverup

By Bridgette P. LaVictoire
Lez Get Real
May 27, 2013

http://lezgetreal.com/2013/05/australias-top-cardinal-scandal-drove-sex-abuse-coverup/

Australia’s top-ranking Cardinal, George Pell, has admitted what most peple pretty much already knew- that fear of scandal prompted the Catholic Church to coverup child sexual abuse allegations. While denying being involved personally in the coverup of pedophile priests, Cardinal Pell told Victoria, Australia’s parliament that “The primary motivation would have been to respect the reputation of the church. There was a fear of scandal.”

The Australian state is looking into the coverup of child sexual abuse by members of the Catholic Church and various non-government organizations. The panel has already heard about how 620 children were sexually abused by Catholic clergy since the 1930?s. Victims were as young as seven and were often raped.

While priests associated with the Catholic and Anglican churches have been identified as having sexual abused children, they typically abuse children at a lower rate than those from religions without a strict hierarchy. The problem has not been the actual abuse quite so much as the decision by the Catholic Church to hide the assaults.

Pell is one of the eight cardinals whom Pope Francis I has selected to advise him on reforming the Church. He did state “I am fully apologetic and absolutely sorry” as he began his testimony.

Pell also noted that the Church had been aware of the issue of child sexual abuse beginning in the late 1980?s, but that it had failed to understand the scope of the problem. He said “If we’d been gossips, which we weren’t… we would have realised earlier just how widespread this business was. I don’t think many, if any, persons in the leadership of the Catholic Church knew what a horrendous widespread mess we were sitting on.”

Pell was also critical about the practice of moving abusive priests to other parishes noting that “There’s no doubt about it that lives have been blighted. There’s no doubt about it that these crimes have contributed to too many suicides.”

Melbourne Archbishop Denis Hart also told the inquirty last week that “I would agree that we’ve been slow to address the anguish of the victims and dealt with it very imperfectly.”

The Victoria investigation is but one of several going on in Australia currently.