By Elise Harris
Angelus
February 29, 2016 – Catholic News Agency
On the first day of his video testimony to Australia’s Royal Commission investigating institutional responses to child sex abuse cases, Cardinal George Pell said that while the Church has made “enormous mistakes” in the handling of abuse cases, he had no role in covering them up.
“Let me just say this as an initial clarification: I’m not here to defend the indefensible,” Cardinal Pell said during the hearing.
The Church “has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those,” he admitted, adding that in many places, and certainly in Australia, the Church “has mucked things up, has let people down.”
However, he also recognized that “there are very few countries in the world who have advanced as far as the Catholic Church has in Australia in putting procedures into place nearly 20 years ago.”
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