AUSTRALIA
SBS
AAP
Australia’s most senior Catholic should acknowledge the church has twice failed victims in its handling of sexual abuse claims, a Geelong priest says.
A Victorian priest says Australia’s most senior Catholic should acknowledge victims were failed, not only by abusing clergy, but by the church response to their complaints.
Cardinal George Pell will be the final witness in the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into child sex abuse when he gives evidence on Monday.
Geelong priest Father Kevin Dillon said church leaders, including Cardinal Pell, must recognise that the inquiry came about not only as a result of appalling abuse, but also because the protocols the church put in place to help victims had not succeeded.
Fr Dillon said he would dearly love Cardinal Pell to say: `On behalf of everybody in the official church I ask for forgiveness of victims, because in so many cases, not necessarily every case, we not only failed you initially, we failed you doubly by having some sort of adversarial approach to your search for justice and recognition’.
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