AUSTRALIA
Catholic Leader
Published: 2 June 2013
By: Paul Dobbyn
CARDINAL George Pell of Sydney said he was “fully apologetic and absolutely sorry” when questioned at the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into institutional child sex abuse.
“I’m certainly totally committed to improving the situation. I know the Holy Father is too,” he told the inquiry last Monday.
He said the problem existed on two levels – the grim list of abuses and secondly how the Church dealt with them.
Cardinal Pell acknowledged the Catholic Church within Australia covered up the “foul crime” of child abuse and this had led to suicides.
Other points he made during his testimony included that the problem did not lie in Church structure but inactivity or poor judgements of some bishops in the area of sexual abuse.
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