AUSTRALIA
The Guardian (UK)
Australian Associated Press
theguardian.com, Thursday 20 March 2014
Cardinal George Pell has believed child sex abuse victims should be able to sue the Catholic church for some time, his private secretary has told a royal commission.
Dr Michael Casey, who has been the Sydney archbishop’s private secretary for more than a decade, said that while he had not heard Cardinal Pell express it in the terms quoted at the royal commission last week, he understood it was his view.
“I think it was certainly his view that people had the right to take civil action against the church or church entities for sexual abuse.”
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is looking at how the archdiocese of Sydney handled a complaint by John Ellis that he had been abused while an altar boy by Father Aidan Duggan at Bass Hill in Sydney’s southwest from 1974 to 1979.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.