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Victims remember Pell's trucking analogy

9 News
February 28, 2016

http://www.9news.com.au/national/2016/02/28/14/56/victims-remember-pell-s-trucking-analogy

Clergy abuse victims have a message for Cardinal George Pell: no more trucking analogies.

Cardinal Pell has said the Catholic Church is no more legally responsible for priests who abuse children than a trucking company which employs a driver who molests women.

That 2014 comment to the child abuse royal commission attracted outrage, and abuse survivors say they do not want a repeat in Cardinal Pell's evidence this week.

Ballarat victim Peter Blenkiron said he ground his teeth so hard the night after Cardinal Pell's trucking analogy that he cracked a tooth, which had to be removed.

"It's time for no more of that," said Mr Blenkiron, who will be in the Rome hotel conference room for Cardinal Pell's testimony.

"We're hoping for the best but preparing for the worst - hoping that George will get up and say 'yes we got this wrong, this is what we need to do', and no more spin doctoring and trucking analogies.

"Preparing for the worst is that they'll just stay with the same old line, that they'll just say what they think will get them through and then do nothing."

During his second commission appearance, Cardinal Pell accepted the church has a moral obligation to victims but said when it comes to its legal responsibility, the actions of its priests are not necessarily its fault.

"If the truck driver picks up some lady and then molests her, I don't think it's appropriate, because it is contrary to the policy, for the ownership, the leadership of that company to be held responsible," he said.

He said if the church had been warned about a priest or had bad policies or procedures in place, "then certainly the church official would be responsible".

Commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said priests got access to children with the parents' consent, unlike truck drivers, and Cardinal Pell conceded the priest-child relationship was quite different to that of a truck driver and casual passenger.

Gordon Hill, who has also headed to Rome, said there was no comparison.

"A truck driver just learns how to drive and he just drives from one point to another."

"But the church actually moulded the priests and the Brothers, and let it happen."

 




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