AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
December 23, 2015
Jane Lee
A royal commission will test whether Cardinal George Pell and former Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns are still too ill to front hearings on their past handling of child sexual abuse claims next year.
Both men were scheduled to give evidence to a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse hearing in Melbourne earlier this month. Chairman of the commission, Justice Peter McClellan, accepted medical evidence that Bishop Mulkearns was receiving palliative care, and that Cardinal Pell was too ill to travel from Rome to testify in person.
Cardinal Pell’s evidence has been deferred to next February’s third hearing on Ballarat, where children were sexually and physically abused at a number of schools run by Catholic clergy over decades. Justice McClellan rejected his application to appear via video link from Rome, saying he preferred Cardinal Pell to appear in person.
The commission announced on Wednesday it would hold two directions hearings on February 5, to consider both Cardinal Pell and Bishop Mulkearns’ “capacity to attend the third part of the public hearing into Catholic Church authorities in Ballarat.”
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