AUSTRALIA
Sky News
Cardinal George Pell is continuing to resist efforts to have him return to Australia to give evidence at the royal commission into child sexual abuse due to ill health.
Cardinal Pell, who is based in Rome where he manages the Vatican’s finances, was initially scheduled to give evidence in Melbourne in December, but cancelled because of a worsening heart condition.
The commission wants to hear testimony from Cardinal Pell, as well as former Bishop of Ballarat Ronald Mulkearns, about decades of sexual and physical abuse at schools run by the Catholic clergy in Melbourne and Ballarat.
Lawyers for Cardinal Pell, at a directions hearing on Friday to consider his capacity to return to Australia for a hearing on February 22, again requested he instead give evidence via video link, despite a medical examination on January 29 not precluding his from travelling.
Alan Myers, QC, representing Cardinal Pell, told the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse that the 74-year-old “when he was able to, was not unwilling to travel to Australia and give evidence before the commission”.
“For the reasons that are set out in the medical opinion to which I’ve referred, that’s not the position at the moment,” Mr Myers said.
But commission chair Justice Peter McClellan said the medical opinion tendered did not say Cardinal Pell could not travel to Australia.
“That doesn’t preclude his travel, does it?” Justice McClellan asked.
“The doctor opines that it would be difficult for him to undertake a flight. It doesn’t mean he can’t come.”
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