George Pell: Royal commission into child sexual abuse to decide whether Cardinal can testify from Rome

By Charlotte King
ABC News
February 7, 2016

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-08/royal-commission-to-decide-whether-george-pell-testify-from-rome/7148352

Cardinal George Pell says he is too ill to return to Australia to give evidence before the royal commission.

Australia's most high-profile Catholic Cardinal George Pell will learn this afternoon whether he will be able to give evidence to the child abuse royal commission from Rome.

Access to Cardinal Pell's two-page medical report was given to counsel assisting the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse at Friday's hearing, on the condition the details were not published.

His lawyers applied for the 74-year-old to be able to appear via an audio visual link at hearings of the inquiry dealing with abuse in Ballarat.

A Ballarat victim of child sex abuse criticised Cardinal Pell, saying he was demanding more from the royal commission than had been offered to survivors.

Abuse survivor David Ridsdale said there needed to be transparency surrounding the reasons given for the Cardinal not wanting to appear in person.

"It's the fact that they're wanting it hidden," he said.

"The fact is they're wanting to use it as an excuse for not attending in person, but then wanting that information hidden.

"That seems incongruent to what the survivors have had to go through."

Mr Ridsdale gave evidence last year, and said survivors deserved a fair resolution.

"The expectation that he deserves some greater level of privacy than we've been offered," he said. "You know, we've had to bare our souls and talk about the most intimate, dark parts of our lives and both Cardinal Pell and Bishop Mulkearns seem to be screaming for personal privacy above and beyond."