AUSTRALIA
Irish Times
Padraig Collins
Australia’s most senior Catholic, Cardinal George Pell, has told an inquiry that the Catholic Church’s history of child abuse is a result of loose entry requirements for priests, past errors of judgment and inaction.
“The entry procedures … for candidates in the middle of last century was much too loose,” Cardinal Pell, who is the Archbishop of Sydney and a former archbishop of Melbourne, told the Victorian child abuse inquiry in Melbourne yesterday.
Cardinal Pell apologised for the abuse committed by Catholic clergy. “I’m fully apologetic and absolutely sorry,” he said. “That is the basis for everything which I’ll say now.”
Damage done
Cardinal Pell said the church had not understood the damage being done to victims of child sex abuse. “I would agree that we’ve been slow to address the anguish of the victims and dealt with it very imperfectly,” he told the inquiry. “I think a big factor in this was not simply to defend the name of the church. Many in the church did not understand just what damage was being done to the victims. We understand that better now.”
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