AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
November 14, 2012
Josephine Tovey, Phillip Coorey, Jonathan Swan
THE Premier, Barry O’Farrell, has questioned the Catholic Church’s rules exempting priests from having to report admissions of sexual abuse made in Confession, as the country’s most senior Catholic, George Pell, defended the church’s handling of paedophilia in its ranks.
On Tuesday a defiant Cardinal Pell welcomed the announcement of a national royal commission into abuse and said he believed it would help decipher real claims from ”significant exaggeration”.
”We’ll answer for what we’ve done,” Cardinal Pell said, adding that he expected to be called to give evidence. ”We’re not trying to defend the indefensible.”
But he hit out at what he described as a ”campaign” by the media and ”general smears” against the Catholic Church.
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