AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald
February 8, 2016
Rachel Browne
Social Affairs Reporter
Cardinal George Pell will not return to Australia to give evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse despite abuse victims’ calls for him to appear in person.
Commission chairman Peter McClellan ruled that while it would be preferable for the Vatican-based cardinal to appear in person, he accepted medical evidence that a long-haul flight posed a serious health threat to the 74-year-old.
A hearing held in Sydney on Monday was told Cardinal Pell suffered from a number of heart troubles.
Part of a medical report from an Italian specialist was read out at the hearing.
The medical report found Cardinal Pell suffered from hypertension, ischemic heart disease, complicated by a previous myocardial infarction, and cardiac dysfunction related to the arterial hypertension.
“The undertaking of a long journey could induce an episode of heart failure and were this to occur during a flight it would also be difficult to treat,” the report concluded.
Justice McClellan accepted the findings of the medical report, telling the hearing there would be a risk to Cardinal Pell’s health if he flew to Australia to give evidence about alleged child sexual abuse in Diocese of Ballarat and the Archdiocese of Melbourne.
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