AUSTRALIA
The Standard
By MARY ALEXANDER May 27, 2013
FORMER senior Catholic Ballarat diocese official Cardinal George Pell will today appear before a parliamentary inquiry into child sexual abuse by members of the clergy.
Australia’s head Catholic was the vicar-in-charge of the Catholic education system in the Ballarat diocese from 1973 to 1984 when many south-west children suffered at the hands of priests and brothers.
Dr Pell was heavily criticised for providing moral support to the diocese’s worst serial offender Gerald Ridsdale when he faced paedophile charges in May 1993.
Then an auxiliary bishop in Melbourne, Dr Pell said Ridsdale “had made terrible mistakes” and his decision to accompany the former priest to court “was simply a gesture on my part”.
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