Premier Daniel Andrews Says Cardinal Pell Should Meet with Survivors

By Matthew Dixon
Armidale Express
February 19, 2016

http://www.armidaleexpress.com.au/story/3739996/premier-says-pell-should-meet-with-survivors/?cs=2452

VICTORIAN Premier Daniel Andrews has backed moves which would see clergy sex abuse survivors travel to Rome to face Cardinal George Pell as he gives evidence at a Royal Commission hearing.

Mr Andrews said while he accepted Cardinal Pell may be to ill to travel for the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, it didn’t stop him from meeting with survivors.

“If Cardinal Pell is too ill to travel then fair enough, I am not going to quibble with that if that is the fact of it,” he said.

“However, let me be very clear about this, Cardinal Pell had ought to make time for anybody who travels to Rome to see him.”

“What is more, if and when he returns to Australia, he should go to Ballarat and make himself available to meet with and hear from all of those whose lives have been forever changed by what went on and what was covered up for far too long.

“If the man is sick, fair enough. He might be too sick to travel, but he is certainly not to sick to meet with people and if they happen to get all the way to Rome, then I would think he could find it in his heart to spend some time with them.”