ROME
news.com.au
[Note: The hearing can be seen in the United States at 4 p.m. EST today (Sunday, Feb. 28) on the Royal Commission site.]
THE connections have been tested and the flights are behind them. On Sunday evening, in an opulent hotel near the heart of the Catholic Church, an extraordinary event will take place.
At 10pm, Australian cardinal George Pell will testify from Rome in a live stream beamed to the Victorian town of Ballarat and Sydney headquarters of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses into Child Sex Abuse.
It’s the third time the Vatican’s finance boss, who ranks number three to beloved Pope Francis, will face the public hearings into what went on in the Catholic Church in Victoria.
This time, Pell will have an audience of 15 survivors and supporters who have travelled from Australia to look him in the eyes, after a popular crowd-funding campaign raised more than $200,000 for their journey.
Here’s everything you need to know about the unprecedented events at Hotel Quirinale.
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT?
Cardinal Pell is being called on to give evidence about his time in the Ballarat and Melbourne diocese where he served as a priest before becoming archbishop of Sydney and Melbourne and eventually moving to the Vatican.
During his time there, several paedophile priests were operating, including at St Alipius school in Ballarat where children were subject to abuse from Gerald Ridsdale, Australia’s most prolific paedophile who described himself as “out of control” at a hearing last year.
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.