Australian sex abuse victims await cardinal’s testimony

ROME
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

By NICOLE WINFIELD

ROME (AP) — A group of Australians who were raped and molested by Catholic priests when they were children are hoping to learn the truth about what a top Vatican cardinal knew about their attackers when he testifies Sunday before an investigative commission at a Rome hotel.

Thanks in part to a crowd-funding campaign, about two dozen Australian sex abuse survivors and their companions travelled across the planet to be on hand when Cardinal George Pell testifies via video link before Australia’s Royal Commission. It’s the third time that Pell, Pope Francis’ top financial adviser, has testified about the sex abuse scandal, but the current round has generated intense international attention because it is taking place a short walk from the Vatican.

The commission, which is half-way through a 435 million Australian dollar ($300 million) government-authorized probe into how all Australian institutions dealt with abuse, agreed to let Pell testify from Rome because he was too ill to travel home. Two weeks ago, it also agreed to let victims be on hand to re-create the type of public hearing that Pell would be subject to in Australia.

David Ridsdale, who was abused for four years by his uncle, the notorious pedophile Gerald Ridsdale, said he had done 17 press interviews before Pell’s testimony even began — and was grateful that the horror of what transpired in Ballarat was finally getting known outside of Australia.

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