AUSTRALIA
The Australian

Editorial

FEBRUARY 22, 2016

George Pell has already appeared twice before the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse — once in person and once via video link from Rome — and always made it clear he was prepared to do so again.

It would be better for all concerned, especially the cardinal, if he did not have a serious heart condition that precludes long-distance flying at present. If that were the case, he could give evidence in person about Ballarat, where he served as a young priest but had no authority in the diocese, and the Archdiocese of Melbourne, where he established the Melbourne Response shortly after his appointment as archbishop in 1996. It was one of the first formal processes of any church in the world for dealing with child sexual abuse. Victim groups regarded it at the time as “the best…