AUSTRALIA
Herald Sun
SHANNON DEERY HERALD SUN JUNE 04, 2015
Australian Archbishops write open letter to support Cardinal George Pell, a ‘man of integrity’
AUSTRALIA’s most senior Catholics have thrown their support behind Cardinal George Pell amid calls for him to step aside from his post at the Vatican.
The Cardinal was this week formally asked by the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse to appear at a second round of hearings at Ballarat later this year.
It followed damning evidence during two weeks of hearings last month that alleged the Cardinal had been involved in a widespread cover-up of child sexual abuse in Ballarat in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cardinal Pell, who denies all allegations of wrongdoing, had offered to attend the hearings before the formal request was made.
Pressure has been mounting for the Cardinal to step down from his top post at the Vatican where as the Secretariat for the Economy he controls the church’s finances.
In an open letter published yesterday five archbishops and two bishops endorsed the Cardinal as a man of integrity.
The joint-statement was signed by the Archbishops of Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Canberra-Goulbourn as well as Broken Bay bishop Peter Comensoli and Sydney’s auxiliary bishop.
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