ROME
RTE News (Ireland)
Australian Cardinal George Pell, the highest-ranking Vatican official to testify on clerical sexual abuse, said the Catholic Church made “enormous mistakes” and “let people down”.
Giving evidence in front of abuse victims in a Rome hotel room, Cardinal Pell told Australia’s Royal Commission into Institutional Response to Child Sexual Abuse that children were often not believed and abusive priests shuffled from parish to parish.
“The Church has made enormous mistakes and is working to remedy those, but the Church in many places, certainly in Australia, has mucked things up, has let people down,” he said via video link to the commission in Sydney.
“I’m not here to defend the indefensible.”
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